Re: why isn't stallman on lp2022 speakers list?
Do we? Isn't a lot of other people available which can offer the same level of guidance as RMS? Hasn't the man spoken a lot over all those years? If we don't, then I think there's much more to evaluate other than him *needing* to be on the list of speakers. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: COVID-19 testing
On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 05:26:11AM -0700, fischersfr...@sent.at wrote: > My great and good friends, > > Every local COVID-19 testing option that I have looked at requires me > to run proprietary software if I am to take the test. Inconveniently, > the testing providers don't say this clearly, so it takes a while > to determine whether a particular provider requires me to run > proprietary software. Why don't just go to a local farmacy and take the test there? ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Ethical and inexpensive mailing list service?
On Sun, Jun 13, 2021 at 09:18:16AM -0300, Jorge P. de Morais Neto via libreplanet-discuss wrote: > Hi. I am part of a few Google Groups mailing lists and I would like to > move further away from G$$gle. Do you recommend an inexpensive (note > that the Brazilian Real is very undervalued against the US Dollar) and > ethical (privacy and software freedom) mailing list service? I've been wanting to write a simple and barebones mailing list software for a while, but couldn't find any oportunities to do so. I would strongly recommend sourcehut or riseup. Cheers, Pedro Lucas ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Boxer syndrome
On Sun, May 09, 2021 at 01:28:55AM +0430, Ali Reza Hayati wrote: > I really believe my new blog post is related to what is happening to the > free software world today. I honestly don't know if your criticizing for or against the Free Software Community, because it seems to me, that (essentially on this mailing list) people are mostly against the changing world we're living in, *outside of software* as if people only live within the bounds of a computer and it's all it matters, i.e. "if I defend free software any other criticism is completely to disrupt my free software activism". Best regards, Pedro Lucas Porcellis ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: GFDL license help
On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 10:48:03AM +0300, Jean Louis wrote: > * Pedro Lucas Porcellis [2021-04-10 06:36]: > > What's wrong with Creative Commons? > > There is no general Creative Commons license. You have to be > specific. There are many various Creative Commons licenses. Well, the OP said he didn't want to use any license from Creative Commons, so according to him, no license from CC is any good. That's my question, why none of those license are acceptable to him. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: GFDL license help
What's wrong with Creative Commons? ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: What email can folks try that's in harmony with principles of Libre software and like gmail isn't stored locally?
On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 07:58:08AM -0500, Don Saklad wrote: > What email can folks try that's in harmony with principles of > Libre software and like gmail isn't stored locally? If you are question other options of email services, I would say that you either have two options. Host yourself, which is difficult, but a interesting challenge or to let someone else host for you. It's that your question though? ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: chromebooks
On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 12:00:28PM +0100, Óscar wrote: > Hi. Here a newbie! > > This is a inquiry about Chromebooks to the community. > > Recently, the public school that my 9-year-old daughter attends has > imposed on us the acquisition of a certain Chromebook. > > I have not found any articles or conversations about it, but I am > first concerned about the landing of the Google empire in public > schools with the support of public institutions. In this case, it is > an uncritical acceptance of the entire Google system, including the > teachers. They celebrate all the comforts the integrated package > offers. The use of free software does not even cross their minds. That's something pretty normal, actually. Here at South America, is kind of *default*, the convenience that Google offers have the weight of them using that data to whatever they want it to. There was going a survey here on this list, about what sort of priorities the FSF should point towards to, in terms of software If I'm not mistaken. You can see if there was something being discuss on that matter there. > Second, I am concerned about the tracking and acquisition of data and > metadata about the content that my daughter accesses throughout her > educational stage. Information that, I suppose, will be recorded on > some distant server and from which their knowledge, character, > mistakes, tastes and preferences, etc. can be inferred, thus creating > a very personal, precise and intimate profile from such an early age. That being said, you can organize and discuss that with other parents, and if you want you can search more about the term *surveillance capitalism*, which is something you can use to get some theory and evidence about that. It's always good to remember though, that in order to understand why surveillance capitalism is bad you need to understand what capitalism is about and how it operates. If you do, you'll not be so much surprised about the way things are, but it will help you to get the full picture. You'll also be more prepared to discuss that than the people behind that Netflix doc. > Maybe in the future the guys at Google will "not be evil.". But what > if they will be? They do evil already. > My questions to the community are: what do you think about it? Do you > think there is a compromised exposure of minors in their educational > stage? What sinister scenarios can you think of based on this data > collection? Do you know any specific case of abuse of privacy in > similar contexts? Again, you can start by looking up for surveillance capitalism. There are a LOT of research being done on this subject, at least here on my country. I don't know much more about how other "central" countries are dealing with it. Two names who comes up, is Laura Kalbag/Aral Balkan and Shoshana Zuboff, although I have some issues with the latter. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: youtube-dl DMCA takedown on GitHub is risk for all GNU/Linux distributions
On Tue, Nov 03, 2020 at 11:03:07AM +0300, Jean Louis wrote: > Mastodon, GNU Social, Pleroma or any federated social network can > become centralized with a lot of money. Once user base is gained, the > network can be centralized. Both Google and Facebook users could > communicate back in time through their chat. They have used the XMPP > in first time. Facebook user could send email to Google user. Google > user could send email to Facebook user. They could chat between > networks. People who did not subscribe neither to Google or to > Facebook could chat to both of them by using XMPP network. > > So those large social networks DID start as pretty much federalized > networks! If I remember well their pages were also pretty much open, > and not closed to non-members. That centralization exists today. https://mastodon.social is the bigger instance, filled with people all around the world and basically the "default" instance people sign up for. The thing is, ActivityPub (i.e. the protocol) is a standard under the W3C. Also, most of the implementations are licensed under AGPL (Pleroma, Mastodon, PeerTube). So that sort of centralization doesn't have much impact today. > Once they have gained user base they removed email and XMPP > possibility. > > Exactly same thing can take place with Fediverse network. Any company > is free to advertise and gain user base, once they gain large user > base it becomes familiar to others and your friends and family will be > telling you about that website. You will then listen to friends and > family and despite having your fediverse account somewhere else, you > may sign up for this or other special feature or reason on their > network. And so will do millions of others. Sooner or later the > company may block the outside Fediverse and centralize its users. Again, that can't happen. Even if a company so desire to enter the competition, we're in a federated network, therefore I *can* use my instance to talk with that company's instance. *That's* wy federation is a really good take on those sort of problems. > Problem is in corporations with money gaining large users based and > not in datacenters or centralization itself. How not? Again, free software cannot resolve things if where we shove it is centralized on the hands of 3 or 5 companies located only on 2, 3 countries. If all rice seeds in the world is being produced on Brasil, and Brasil decides to not selling for the rest of the world y'all be fucked when you run out of rice seed. It doesn't matter if you have land to plant them (that's a silly example). > If company would be providing free software messenger and hosting free > software servers with the transparent and safe peer to peer > encryption, without abusing users' privacy and selling their > information, I do not think that centralization itself would be > problem there. A company would not do that. It's not profitable. And a basic thing for a company to operate is to have some sort of profit. > There is fundamental Internet bait called "get it free" and that was > never explained to public until today. Would people be taught from > beginning that they should pay for service, there would be less of > centralization that we have today. Just as for email services, when > people pay for email they are centralized and companies can provide > them service without entering into their private lives. If they do not > pay for service they have to submit to email searches and PRYSM spying > network. Exactly what I've said before. > There is only free software politics for GNU and no other > politics. That is policy of GNU project. > > No radical politics. > > No strenghtening of national infrastrucutre. > > Maybe some other organization, but not GNU. GNU is friendly and > welcoming and being apolitical for anything but free software makes it > friendly and welcoming regardless of various opinions of people and > their political orientations. > > Sanctions are political, but GNU project regards only free software > politics, nothing else. Any movement is somewhere down the line, political itself. The GNU project cannot be apolitical, because it is confronting the common sense and therefore posing questions that it doesn't exist or didn't matter until them. Politics is way more than "regular good-old liberal politics". It envolves acting, thinking, questioning, being critical about what is being throw at us. What I'm trying to say is that the Free Software Mov. is a entrance to question deeper and beyond. De-centralization *and* free software is bad for companies that want to exploit users. They're holding hands, not apart. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Fine differences
On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 10:23:51AM -0300, Adonay Felipe Nogueira via libreplanet-discuss wrote: > Em 31/10/2020 04:57, Jean Louis escreveu: > > I have not verified each system distribution and I do not think that > > the approach to simply remove packages that could go to non-free > > repositories is the best approach. I do not say it is not right, I say > > it is not best approach. > > Indeed, but in the other exteme (making GNU FSDG-compliant repositories > for these package managers) requires time, extra knowledge on the > intricacies of each package manager and preferably a coordination to > have all free/libre system distributions contribute to it. > > > Best approach would be to bundle or prepare package repositories or > > packages of let us say npm in the distribution itself. Better is > > Indeed, some Python/Rust/NodeJS packages are already available in most > free/libre system distributions in the form of the distributios' native > packaging system. This is actually the better approach. A distro should know better how it wants to install a software than a general use package manager. For development, tools like pip, npm and others works fine, but into a production/release level, maintainers should just release the tarball and let people package themself. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: youtube-dl DMCA takedown on GitHub is risk for all GNU/Linux distributions
On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 09:08:32PM +0330, Ali Reza Hayati wrote: > Much of this, as you said, is the problem of unjust laws that are > affecting software. For example, my country, Iran, is under U.S. > sanctions. As a result, GitHub and GitLab are blocking us and banning > our accounts. > > For every service based in United States, no matter what's the use, > there's a chance for us Iranians to be blocked. > > We can't pay for even small services such as a VPS or a hosting. My > website is currently hosted by a guy in Germany for free because I can't > pay anyone for hosting. > > I really do want to host my own Mastodon or Pixelfed or Peertube > instances but no, I can't because of sanctions and these sanctions are > stupid because they don't affect the government but affects us people. I > can't think of any way that me buying a hosting service can violate U.S. > or world's laws over nuclear weapons. And that's why we can't deattach politics from the free software movement. This may sounds like taking sand to the beach, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while. Free Software can help on dealing with those problems, as you can have decentralized software which respects the four essencial freedoms (like Sourcehut as a Github replacement, Mastodon/Pleroma as a Twitter alternative, etc), but if all main datacenters in the world and infra options are on the US/Europe, then the problem will never be solved. I think that the free software movement, must seek to unity with radical politics that seeks to strenght national infrastructure (and therefore improving strategic sectors like tech) which would help to deal with that kind of shit. > These are some of the problems only in the matter of economy in > software that we're facing because of unjust laws. As long as we have > discrimination and injustices like this, we remain in same situation, > sadly. By the way, most of those sanctions are not only unjust, but deadly [1] and illegal [2]. After sanctions were invented people just forgot about what Imperialism [3] means and why it does what it does. -- [1]: https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf [2]: https://truthout.org/articles/us-sanctions-are-deadly-illegal-and-ineffective [3]: Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" helps here ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Free Software Logo
> I'm letting you know that there is now a Free Software Logo ready to use > for everybody wanting to have a sign that says "Free Software" Interesting... How did you come up with that design? ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: The sad decline of copyleft software licenses? :(
> I just checked, and indeed the Software Freedom Conservancy has a list of > supported projects. Is that what you're referring to? However, it's not > clear to me if those projects represent diverse and successful models of > financial sustainability. Yeah, I don't really know if such a list exists, but nonetheless I think that both the SF Conservancy and FSF should keep one. > Ah I understand now, thank you. I think you're making largely the same point > as this (?): > > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html Yeah, although I think that it has deep links with our behavior as a society. Most people don't really see themself as political actors and don't connect their actions with politics or how are influenced by them (maybe the concept of hegemony?). Most of them rather want "to keep politics out of software development", and do a mental stretch to deny politization of the movement. I already saw people do this _while_ they advocating for free software movement, which is crazy at least. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: The sad decline of copyleft software licenses? :(
> That's really cool! I knew that sourcehut is aiming to be a fully free > replacement for platforms like GitHub, but had wrongly assumed it to use a > permissive license. One more good example of a business around copyleft free > software (maybe we should keep a list!) Yeah, that's a good idea actually. I think the Software Freedom Conservancy keeps a list, but I don't really know. > > I think this is all deeply related to how we structure ourself as > > society and depoliticization of the free software movement. > > > > I hope it made sense, I wrote in a bit of a hurry while writing > > proprietary software for companies that literally throw thousands of > > pesticides in my country's food. > Can you elaborate what you mean my depoliticization? It sounds vaguely > interesting but I can't quite put a finger on what you're saying. Sorry, I don't really know if this is even a word in other languages, maybe the correct term would be unpolitization? Anyway, it basically means taking the political/ideological part of a social phenomenon. The free software movement was coopted into a more commercial movement when terms like open-source emerged with force and has been embraced by - almost all - megacorps today. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: The sad decline of copyleft software licenses? :(
> The second criticism is kind of a sign of the times if you think about it. > 30 years ago when GPL there was the big war of us versus them. And evil > corporations and all of that stuff. Not that these dangerous corporations > don't exist now of course. The danger of corporations is more than ever. But > the people have changed. I don't think those people have changed. They just adapted to the current environment. By marketing "open-source" libraries and components you can have cheap and free labor. "Don't worry, people will fix that React bug for you, while you don't really respect people's freedoms, keep spying, storing user's data, doing unethical things, and even fucking up things outside the non-digital world, I mean, look at facebook and Google, etc. > People nowadays are far more collaborative and diverse. The simple number of > programmers and licenses and software that we have is hundreds of time more > than 30 years ago. Expecting people to stay only in the GPL ecosystem, which > is not that big to begin with, is basically driving people away. I can't > think of a single programmer that I can convince to use GPL with all of the > legalities and considerations of dependencies it can have. Again, that's just a lack of understanding and lazyness of today most developers. If a developer randomly picks a permissive license this person can trade that for GPL. The key difference is that all derivative-works will keep enforcing that premisse while building a chain of respect. > One big success story of Copyleft license is the Activity Pub ecosystem if > you know it. Mastodon, Pixelfed, Peertube, WriteFreely and more all under > AGPL-3. > > The thing we have to keep in mind with Copyleft is that it is still not the > time for it in my opinion. We live in a time of extreme corporate > propaganda. And fake openness everywhere. While at the same time they lock > into their ecosystem. Two big examples is the Web with the Google-Chromium > monopoly and systemd. That's EXACTLY why we need Copyleft. We need to push forward and show that companies and products can be built around licenses like the GPL. For instance, sourcehut (AGPL) is one of the most promising examples of a company built around a complete free and open-source ecosystem, and which truly enforces and contributes more and more towards this goal. > 1. Is FSF and GNU as a whole happy with the current situation? We > technically have more Free Software than ever. But the Copyleft and user > abuse is as high as it has ever been. > > 2. Is FSF and GNU the center of thing anymore? Do we want it to be? Because > I can tell you that there are Copyleft Licenses outside of GNU. Few but > exist. And there are developers that left GNU for some reason but still work > on Copyleft software. And of course the young developers that haven't heard > of FSF or GNU. Or don't want/bother to join. I think this is about perspective. FSF and GNU still _works_. They're being undermined because we live in a society where we enforce _non free software_ and make it even harder for people who wants to write free software, after all, _in order to write free software we need to write proprietary software first as we need to pay some bills_. I think this is all deeply related to how we structure ourself as society and depoliticization of the free software movement. I hope it made sense, I wrote in a bit of a hurry while writing proprietary software for companies that literally throw thousands of pesticides in my country's food. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: What can an informed patient suggest instead of "zoom"?
> In the predicament when the doctor's office offers "zoom" for > teleconferencing with patients from home what can a somewhat informed > patient suggest instead of "zoom" You can simple recommend to use alternatives, like Jitsi. Although, I think you should do with common sense in mind. I'm slowly teaching my therapist to use alternatives (she has only used Google's Duo or WhatsApp for video-calls), like using Duo on the Web, then proceeding to teach her to know other tools, like Jitsi. This is not something I would do with my GP, for example. For lack of intimacy and also for common sense, after all I only see him once four to six months. Being an activist for free software does not mean that I will force or shout at people to use GNU / Linux or to join the cause, but every time I feel that I have the opportunity *and it makes sense*, I will try to give the hint. People need to understand why free software is better, and they will naturally choose if they fully understand. In fact, I've been seeing more and more people on my circles realizing and ditching stuff like YouTube for NewPipe merely by seeing how better is the app and how it works *for people*, not profit, and starting to experiment with things like Mastodon/Fediverse. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
