Re: The role of FOSS in preventing a recurrence of vehicle emissions scandals
Very good initiative Lars. It is possible (but very difficult in practice) to create a device, as "simple" as a open source open hardware counter, as "simple" as that, embedded in every sensor or controller, that counts how many times it was re-configured. Again, proprietary controllers modified through a backdoor (defective by design concept), could circumvent that counter. Emission control should be done for a certain representative sample of a certain model year or generation, not for all, nor for one. The representative sample should be taken from the geography of the world and from the year/month. And then, emission control should be done randomly on the street ... And then there could be more "job" for some corrupt policeman from certain cities of some countries stopping people and asking for money because they "do not comply with emissions". Other policeman will sell that info to a law firm that sues the car manufacturer and get some money from them in in a out-of-court settlement or ... exposes the manufacturer to the public opinion. On Mon, 8 May 2023 at 11:24, Matt Ivie <[1]m0dese...@mykolab.com> wrote: On Sat, 2023-05-06 at 16:58 +0300, Lars Noodén wrote: > Recent news¹ reminds us that back in 2015 a whistleblower exposed the > VW/Audi emissions scandal, which I guess had been going on since > 1999. > The companies executives used closed source, proprietary software in > the > vehicles to hide the fact that the vehicles were emitting 40 times > the > allowed NOx when actually out on the roads and not in the testing > centers. Even with fines and prison sentences, there is no way to be > sure the companies are not working on more of the same -- unless the > development is done out in the open. > > Clearly we see both physical and economic harm from neglecting to > require FOSS even in embedded computers, such as the 100+ now found > in > each new car. because these companies have already shown that the > closed source model *cannot* be trusted such style of development > should > not be allowed any more in regards to vehicles. Surely a FOSS-based > workflow can be figured out. > > Perhaps it is a timely and appropriate topic for institutions like > FSF, > OSI, EFFI, and so on to address that publicly? Even a short > statement > in passing would at least raise awareness and provide an opportunity > to > ratchet things forward in regard to Software Freedom. > > /Lars > remember this scandal very well. There is a large incentive for car companies not to use Free Software on their embedded controllers. The emissions problem you highlight actually has a reverse effect if ANYONE can change or modify those programs. The intention of using Free Software on the controller to allow everyone to see what the code is telling the vehicle to do is good but given the ability for anyone to change the code and install their changes opens the door for those that don't care about emissions to tune their engine for performance instead of emissions. It could be argued that there are ways to avoid that, and I'm sure there are but how complex does that become? The car manufacturers also have a business model setup for repair of vehicles so allowing just anyone to tinker with the way their ECM works destroys their "control". While Free Software advocates realize the benefits of having Free Software, it will take a lot of effort to get a corporation to give up one of their revenue streams. Look at John Deere ( [2]https://stallman.org/archives/2022-nov-feb.html#18_January_2023_( Right_to_repair,_John_Deere) ) for example. Back in the day, before ECMs and computer control, one could tune their engine any way they chose. If you needed to pass an emissions test you would make sure your engine was setup to do just that, but then you could change it back after the test was passed. The inaccurate fuel and air metering that allowed that just isn't efficient enough to even make a car reliable without constant tuning let alone allow accurate emissions controls. Computer control was really the only way to get the job done. If we want control of those computers through Free Software we have a long battle ahead. I think there are solutions to be talked about. The next frontier though, is electric. With Electric has come the concept of "subscription features" and self driving. I think we need to address those issues every bit as much as we would need to regulate the management of software on ICE (Internal Combustion Engine)
Re: Recommendations of LMS
Hi Jonathan: Canvas and Moodle have open source licenses. Canvas is AGPL and Moodle is GPL. I have used Moodle with good results. Moodle is quite popular in Colombia. Cheers, Héctor El mar., 4 de ago. de 2020, 09:55, Jonathan Sandoval <[1]cloudneoz...@gmail.com> escribió: Hi everyone, I'm still unsure about the topics of this list. I hope my question is valid. I'm a volunteer for a community process in a city of Colombia. We're promoting art, culture, technology and science. We've got some donated old computers and started to install them with Trisquel. That was pre-covid. Now, our activities are virtual and we're trying to use libre software as much as possible (Jitsi Meet for our meetings, BigBlueButton for our educational activities, a mailing list with sympa, Nextcloud for filesharing, and so on). We have teachers (volunteers as me) for guitar, dance, theather, a science club, and I proposed them we could use a learning management system like Moodle or Canvas. They are creating stuff like videos, images, etc. and I thought it would be a good idea to use a LMS for structure of a course. So, my question is: what LMS that respects freedom would you recommend?. I've worked in the past with Moodle and installed it for some schools and universities. I've seen Canvas LMS is very interesting too. Any recommendation?, or maybe, any trouble with these mentioned options?. Thanks in advance. And sorry for my english. As I mentioned, I'm a native spanish speaker. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [2]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [3]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s References 1. mailto:cloudneoz...@gmail.com 2. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 3. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Free software video conferencing tools advocacy call to action
Hi: I wrote an email to them to include Jami, Big Blue Button and Jitsi Meet. Best, Héctor Espinoza On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 11:38 AM Paul Sutton wrote: > > Hi > > Just responded to a post from online centres (@Online_Centres) in the uk > regarding their course https://www.learnmyway.com/courses/video-calling/ > not having any mention of free software tools > > I tweeted in @fsf and @fsfe but if anyone can help by tweeting them a > few alternatives please (there is a good list somewhere I can't find it.) > > I know there are things such as > > Jami > Big Blue button > Jitsi meet (or however you type it) > > Any help will really support the cause, We won't get anywhere with ONE > person doing this, it needs a combined effort. > > Also a good way to cite that the community held the whole of libreplanet > 2020 via free software, which will help push back against any argument > about it not working properly. > > Thanks for any help, lets spread the word. > > Paul > -- > Paul Sutton > https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/ > gnupg : 7D6D B682 F351 8D08 1893 1E16 F086 5537 D066 302D > > Get a free mastodon account at > https://mastodon.org.uk/about > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Online banking support for Linux?
Hi Greg: I do online banking almost everyday here in Colombia and Ecuador with many banks and all except one work with Fedora 28 + Firefox. The other one works with Chromium. I do not need to change the user agent. In Spain it worked as well with Ubuntu + Firefox at that time. Best, Héctor On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 2:15 PM Greg Knittl wrote: > > Hi All, > > I'm in Ontario, Canada. My credit union, Meridian, only supports > Microsoft Windows and Max OS X for online banking. > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx under > browser requirements. > > I doubt they have any legal or regulatory obligation to support Linux - > but it's getting to the point where it's almost a necessity to bank > online, especially with COVID-19. I think the government needs to step > in to regulate online banking terms and conditions. > > Any thoughts on legalities? > > From the > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx > especially the section titled Your Online Privacy they describe fairly > vague security procedures that would be difficult to completely follow > even if I installed Windows or MAC OS X. I.e. if there were an issue I > have the feeling the "100% Security Guarantee" wouldn't amount to much. > Also these are not really platform specific requirements and they could > just as well apply to Linux. > > They have offered to support me remotely by paper mail and phone (I now > have a cell phone which I doubt is particularly secure) which I will > probably do for now. > > Any thoughts on technical issues? How would a financial institution > write platform independent online banking terms and conditions? I cringe > at how much attack surface a browser adds especially with javascript. > Maybe I've spent too much time on the command line, but sending > encrypted files back and forth by email or ftp or internet get/post > seems safer to me. > > Has anyone found an institution that officially supports Linux, > particularly in Canada? > > thanks, > Greg > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: virtual meetings
Hi! I would like to share my experience during the last few weeks. I am university professor. I teach Fluid Machinery, Heat Transfer and Computatinal Fluid Dynamics in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. I have a concurrent group of 40+ students. I have been using jitsi meet sucessfully. I mainly use Audio in/out, Chatt text in/out, Screen sharing in/out, Window Sharing in/out, GIMP window sharing to share sketches out. Out: from professor (me) to students. I connect using a laptop+headset+mouse+keyboard+29inch FHD monitor running Fedora with Firefox+GIMP+Evince+Gedit. Sometimes I use smartphone+headset running Android with jitsi meet app. Students connect using laptops, desktops and smart phones. Laptop/desktop run windows and mac with Chrome and Firefox. Smartphones run Android and iOS with jitsi meet app. We have very good audio quality, good latency and smooth teaching experience. Hector Espinoza PS: I have not had time to set up a jitsi server (jitsi videobridge) in my city, so I use the free server located in USA called us-east [1]meet.jit.si El lun., 11 de may. de 2020, 10:36, Paul Sutton <[2]paulsut...@disroot.org> escribió: I get the same problem in the UK. There is an assumption that people: * Uses a particular proprietary solution or * Want to use a proprietary solution or Or in some cases they assume people have or can even afford a smartphone on low or zero income. As it is seen that everyone uses zoom, teams, (as everyone assumes you use Windows, MS office) and even down to assuming you use or want to use facebook. So lets share lots of examples of where free alternatives are being used, I quite like Jitsi meet, it will be better for me once I have a headset. I also like the look of Big Blue button as a potential teaching tool, as I can upload a pdf presentation or other document, share screens and also share notes. I understand your frustration, what is worse is that some job interviews are also being conducted over zoom, which is really going to discriminate against anyone not having the ability to use zoom. Or may not want to due to the number of security issues that have been reported. Paul On 04/05/2020 16:52, LM wrote: > Okay, just had to complain to a more sympathetic ear. Seems like all > the technical groups in my area are using Zoom or Microsoft Teams or > Microsoft Visual Studio for communications during virtual meetings. > Talk about not being inclusive. I've been posting links for the FSF > alternatives and letting them know not everyone can access what > they're using, but they don't seem to care. > > On the plus side, LibreMiami held its first Jitsi meeting this > Saturday and I thought they did a wonderful job on it. > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > [3]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > [4]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s > -- Paul Sutton [5]https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/ gnupg : 7D6D B682 F351 8D08 1893 1E16 F086 5537 D066 302D ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [6]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [7]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s References 1. http://meet.jit.si/ 2. mailto:paulsut...@disroot.org 3. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 4. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss 5. https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/ 6. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 7. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: purism why does fsf and libreplanet embrace a misleading company?
I agree about liying or misleading. Without ethics nothing works. I am talking in general not specific case. El dom., 15 de mar. de 2020, 09:15, a via libreplanet-discuss <[1]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> escribió: >>In my opinion moving in one step from all closed source to all open >>source freedom respecting is very hard or practically impossible. I am >>happy people are doing steps towards all open source and no hidden >>stuff. One valid step is modern hardware running open source Operating >>System out of the box. Another valid step is adding open source freedom >>respecting bios (i.e. libreboot) to that. Another valid step is ... Let >>us not forget the goal and keep doing steps. Small or big. All is >>welcome for the benefit of mankind. You are mixing things up. purism can make what products they want. What they cannot do is lie about the properties of their products. Do not tell people respect your freedom certification is an option, when it is not. And at every given opportunity, people should get to know, purism has a track record of lying. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [2]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [3]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s References 1. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 2. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 3. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: purism why does fsf and libreboot embrace a misleading company?
In my opinion moving in one step from all closed source to all open source freedom respecting is very hard or practically impossible. I am happy people are doing steps towards all open source and no hidden stuff. One valid step is modern hardware running open source Operating System out of the box. Another valid step is adding open source freedom respecting bios (i.e. libreboot) to that. Another valid step is ... Let us not forget the goal and keep doing steps. Small or big. All is welcome for the benefit of mankind. Cheers, Héctor Espinoza El mié., 11 de mar. de 2020, 17:11, Lori Nagel via libreplanet-discuss <[1]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> escribió: I'm not really sure how Purism is any worse than companies like Think Penguin, or than the machines are any less freedom respecting than anything else that can run a FSF endorsed distro and coreboot. Even some new system76 machines are running coreboot now from what I understand. I understand it is hard to find hardware that gets a RYF certification because of some stuff with intel, but I understand this is not necessarily an issue with every chip, just most desktops and laptops. (with the exception of some old ones such as the refurbished ThinkPads like the t400) On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, 3:12:10 PM EDT, a via libreplanet-discuss <[2]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> wrote: This post is directed at officials from libreplanet and fsf. I wrote this post on trisquel's forum. [1][3]https://paste.nolsen.xyz/?98e7462461e8a46c#8YchW86Fn3UvkxdHbfN 74cVVo YkFqCGWCx2tWVX5uvZJ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [2][4]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [3][5]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-dis cuss References 1. [6]https://paste.nolsen.xyz/?98e7462461e8a46c#8YchW86Fn3UvkxdHbfN74c VVoYkFqCGWCx2tWVX5uvZJ 2. mailto:[7]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 3. [8]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [9]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [10]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discu ss References 1. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 2. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 3. https://paste.nolsen.xyz/?98e7462461e8a46c#8YchW86Fn3UvkxdHbfN74cVVo 4. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 5. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss 6. https://paste.nolsen.xyz/?98e7462461e8a46c#8YchW86Fn3UvkxdHbfN74cVVoYkFqCGWCx2tWVX5uvZJ 7. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 8. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss 9. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 10. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Campaign to boycott Facebook
Hi Jim: I think your point is very important. Day to day, not only inside of digital social networks, but in television/radio/newspapers that probably happens as well. Perhaps digital social networks have democratized social networking but regulating content is always tricky. Maybe inside that network or any other network anybody can potentially be the biggest leader/influencer (time/workforce resources aside). It is up to us in last instance to determine our trusting entities. Of course too much noise makes that more difficult. Cheers, Héctor Espinoza On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 4:38 PM Jim Garrett <[1]jimgarr...@posteo.net> wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > I've always counseled friends to leave Facebook, when the conversation > was feasible or potentially fruitful, but hearing recently that author > Stephen King has left Facebook due to FB's policy to allow factually > incorrect political advertisements, I realized just how this threatens > US democracy (and possibly democracy in other countries as well): > (1) the Trump campaign has at least 500M dollars, and (2) Trump has no > compunction against disgorging a stream of lies with no concern for > discourse. I'm envisioning what is technically called a s**tstorm that > will cause chaos and simply overwhelm discourse. > > I'm calling out to my friends to ask them to boycott, and I'm > suggesting they preserve their Facebook community by organizing > transitions to alternatives. I suggest Friendica and Mastodon as > specific alternatives. > > I've written my missive in blog form here: > > [2]https://internetperdition.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/boycott-facebook- for-real-this-time-to-save-our-democracy/ > > Please consider reaching out to your friends and colleagues similarly. > Feel free to point them to my blog, create your own version, or > proceed however makes sense to you. > > I think this is a special time. Facebook has always been > reprehensible, but now they've made one additional error that most > people find particularly hard to swallow: they forbid incorrect medical > ads because "they could cause harm", but not incorrect political ads. > It follows that Facebook believes that political ads don't cause harm. > > Admittedly, my post is US-centric. I also made the tactical choice to > not for Free Software specifically, for which I'm sure many here will > be disappointed. I generally do advocate for Free Software when I > see an opportunity, but I felt the need to focus in this case, and can > discuss software freedom in whatever follow-up conversations arise. > > Thanks for acting in whatever way you can! > > Jim Garrett > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > [3]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > [4]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss References 1. mailto:jimgarr...@posteo.net 2. https://internetperdition.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/boycott-facebook-for-real-this-time-to-save-our-democracy/ 3. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 4. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
