Re: [Arm-netbook] What do 1,000 EOMA68-A20 PCBs look like?
On 2018-12-05 at 17:40:29 +0100, Paul Boddie wrote: > Of course, Debian supports everything of interest, but then there has to be a > process of weeding out non-free packages and content. Note that this "process" simply involves not adding the 'non-free' repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. It's not silently added by default, the user/admin needs to make an explicit choice to add it. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] riscv-basics.com
On 2018-07-10 at 18:13:12 +0200, David Boddie wrote: > It's currently down - perhaps there was a public backlash, the server > overheated, or something it has been taken down by arm themselves after their own staff complained: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/ -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Top Priority Software Tasks
On 2017-11-30 at 08:14:09 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > and informations are being kept updated on the debian wiki: > > https://wiki.debian.org/MaliGraphics (and related pages) > > but there doesn't seem to be much work done for allwinner SoCs, at the > > moment. > > According to that web-page, there shouldn't need to be anything > Allwinner-specific anyway, right (other than adding the GPU nodes to > the relevant DTS)? The talk in the video explained that right now packages have to be SoC-specific (and there may even be some allwinner-specific code that is required, but not necessarily available). I don't remember all the details, however, and the talk explains them better than I could (sorry for the lack of text-based references). -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Top Priority Software Tasks
On 2017-11-29 at 21:00:37 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > Stefan "who doesn't know if the proprietary binary-blob MALI > driver currently works with mainline Linux" There was a talk on that blob at the debian minidebconf cambridge last weekend (video available) https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEvents/gb/2017/MiniDebConfCambridge/Sliepen and informations are being kept updated on the debian wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/MaliGraphics (and related pages) but there doesn't seem to be much work done for allwinner SoCs, at the moment. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] riki200 v3 first print: success
On 2017-09-18 at 07:07:04 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > the entire arduino software ecosystem was never designed to actually > give people proper access to the hardware. anything that's a 180mb > download and requires a 200mb runtime environment to compile and > upload an executable that's only 16k in size *really* isn't going to > end well. Well, IIRC they do bundle gcc(-avr), which tends to be quite big, but doesn't really need to be downloaded again if you already have it from your distribution, and the runtime environment is only needed if you want to use their IDE instead of your favourite editor + a Makefile (and there is (was?) at least one example Makefile somewhere in the arduino package). Looking at the installed sizes on debian (which has an older version for license reasons) I see that the libraries are about 6½MB and the IDE itself is just 1½MB. https://packages.debian.org/sid/arduino-core https://packages.debian.org/sid/arduino To really reduce size they would have to drop gcc, but I don't think that would be a reasonable choice for just the aim of side reduction. Other than assuming that beginners will be fine with just their IDE (and targeting their documentation at them), I don't think they ever did anything to prevent people from going deeper on their own, as they learned more, including using the arduino board as an AVR devboard completely ignoring the arduino software. > so they're stepping well outside of the "normal" boundaries - good > luck to them. Fully agree here: what they are doing lately makes them at the very least quite irrelevant to the Open Hardware world. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] systemd nonsense ad-infinitum
On 2017-07-04 at 14:39:17 -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: > On Tue, Jul 04, 2017 at 08:01:54PM +0300, Bill Kontos wrote: > > It seems like those who > > actually did the work scripting for inits chose to work for systemd > > only, and now it's just a bunch of people who demand stuff without > > offering anything in return( i.e. work). > > As I heard it, the disputes about systemd on the Debian mailing > lists got so vicious that those who didn't want systemd left and > went elsewhere to contribute. well, the disputes got vicious, and I admit that I skipped reading most of it for my own sanity. At least on IRC, however, most of the viciousness seemed to come from the non-systemd camp; it can be true that they alienated the people who may have wanted to help supporting other systems, but making them not want to be on the same side of those people, but blaming the systemd-supporting debian community for their actions doesn't sound right. I say seemed, however, because at least in the worst cases the pattern of behaviour were more suggestive of a troll trying to stir up controversy for its own sake (or for some other reason) rather than somebody honestly concerned with systemd, and that surely helped muddle things further. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] systemd nonsense ad-infinitum
On 2017-07-04 at 13:07:33 -0400, Christopher Havel wrote: > With all due respect, some people can't code. Do they not deserve a voice? In the past, the FLOSS community was pretty bad at only valuing contributions that involved writing code, and ignoring pretty much everything else. Nowadays, it depends a lot on which community you are involved with: some are still of the idea that only code matters, but many more recognise that software alone has limited usefulness, and that many other kinds of contributions are just as important. Debian these days is one such community (see e.g. https://www.debian.org/intro/diversity and https://contributors.debian.org/ and http://www.enricozini.org/blog/2012/debian/more-diversity-in-skills/ for some background on the latter), and while being somewhat technically minded is helpful in finding something to contribute on, actual writing of code is a minority of the available tasks. One think that is *very* helpful is testing stuff, especially when using rare configurations, and opening bugs when something isn't working as expected. It is true that does not always mean that they are going to be fixed, but it is still useful. * if there is no open bug on the bugtracker you can be 99% that it won't be fixed, opening the bug significantly raises the chances for a fix, even if it's not a guantee. * by opening the bug you are showing that somebody is actually using that program/feature: sometimes minor stuff that the maintainers don't really care about are taking lots of their effort, and if they don't even know if anybody cares about it they are much more likely to just drop worrying about it. * Not just the package maintainers see the bugs on their packages: sometimes other people notice them and may get involved and provide a patch, even if they are not the bug opener themselves. While doing so, remember that (in the case of Debian) you're probably requesting somebody to do something in their spare time, so they may not answer immediately (or in the next week), and maybe the answer will be that they can't fix the bug unless somebody else comes with a patch, but being nice in the request usually leads to receiving nice answers. I agree that it's not a task suitable to anybody as it does require at least a bit of proficiency in using linux systems and the ability to follow instructions (probably involving the command line) to provide more data if needed, but the set of people being able to to so should be much bigger than the set of people who are able to succefully patch some random code. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] severe systemd bugs (two of them)
On 2017-07-04 at 10:04:03 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 7:55 AM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: > > > Openrc is included in Debian. > > that's new (and fantastic to hear) - it appears that openrc is > interoperable with initscripts so in theeorryyy there shouldn't be any > need to submit new configs (start/stop scripts for services). It was one of the candidates considered when deciding what init system to adopt, altought it had much less support than systemd or upstart (and I suspect it's even less tested than sysvinit). But, most maintainers are going to be happy to receive patch to improve support for it (just like they are for sysvinit), even if they may not be interested in creating them themselves. I've found that the first traces of it are in 2012: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/04/msg00547.html -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] severe systemd bugs (two of them)
On 2017-07-03 at 11:34:29 -0400, Jonathan Frederickson wrote: > The distro maintainers have to manage their (often limited and unpaid) > time wisely. In Debian's case, choosing systemd as the init system > means that package maintainers only have to write much shorter systemd > service files instead of longer sysvinit-style startup scripts. As a > developer, I can certainly understand that decision. for the sake of accuracy, I'd like to point out that Debian's developers are still adding sysvinit startup scripts, or at least maintaining the existing ones (altought "patches welcome" is very much the approach in the case of new ones). sysvinit is still a supported init system in Debian (and still the default on the non-linux port, which are not release architectures but are still pretty maintained); the main reason why this may change in the future is if there is no longer anybody who cares about it enough to at least report bugs, but ideally also support the developement¹. what is not supported is having a system that is completely purged of any reference to the systemd libraries, even if they just point to shim code, because that would require distributing multiple binary packages for a lot of source packages, and that is not really suitable to the way debian works. The main victim to debian choosing to default on systemd, up to now, has been upstrart, and that only because upstream (Canonical) stopped supporting it. However, from the point of view of independence from a single corporation that would have been even worse. > Perhaps software freedom alone is no longer enough, and in some cases > I agree. But in this case, I don't think I can fault Debian (as a > volunteer project) for not wanting to do work they don't have to. Indeed, volunteer time is seriously limited, and there are things that are just beyond what can be expected from them. E.g. if a mayor DE would start requiring systemd to work, Debian would not be in the position to fork it, but that doesn't mean that non-systemd users will be forced to migrate to systemd, just that they would have to use one of the many other DE available in Debian. ¹ this is not that unlikely, however: there have been a number of calls for help because the numbers of complaints on the mailing list is much higher than the number of people actually giving even a tiny bit of help in ensuring that sysvinit continues to be tested and supported in Debian, and if nobody tests it, eventually it will bitrot and stop working. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Totally derailed topic
On 2017-05-11 at 06:57:00 +, Lyberta wrote: > Believing in religion is like buying Apple's iPhone. Sure, it's shiny, > it has apps, you may feel good about yourself. But most people don't > understand how much they sacrifice by using it. Like downloading apps > not from Apple Store or not be constantly surveilled. Well, some people have faith, and they don't have a choice in having it or not. Personally I feel it's like having another sense like smell: imprecise, prone to misunderstanding, but it's there and those who have it cannot deny that they feel something. Did I mention "imprecise"? Understanding *what* that something is is a whole different matter, and historically lots of people who claimed who know have been proved (or strongly suspected) to lie for their own advantage. > Religion is the cause of most homophobia and transphobia in the world. > LGBT people get executed by ISIS, get imprisoned by Chechens and get > discriminated in most of the world. well, not really. power and lust for it is the cause of most *phobia in the world; homosexual and trans people are among the minorities that are currently used as an easy target to turn people's insatisfaction with the current situation on, like in the past it was the jews (and homosexuals, and jehowa's witnesses, etc) in germany, the japanese in the US during the war and the communists afterwards, etc. Some of it uses the excuse of religion, some of race, some of politics, but the shared factor is that they are all minorities that are big enough to be visible, but small enough that the people in power (or who want to get in power) don't feel them as a danger. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
[Arm-netbook] Changed list-id
Hello I've just noticed that the list-id for this list has been changed: would it be possible to announce it in advance so that people have time to update their filters? BTW, I think that the current list-id also has a typo, so am I correct in thinking that it will probably change again in the future? -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Logging and journaling
On 2017-03-08 at 06:16:20 +, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > > and calls them a criminal enterprise. > > if they've distributed copyright-violating code, and haven't fixed > that, then yes. do you deny that they've distributed > copyright-violating code in the past? IANAL, but I'm quite sure that most sane legislations cover this kind of copyright violations in civil law, not in criminal law, so no, if they only did that they didn't commit any crime and they can't be called criminal. They are people who did something wrong (are still doing? I don't care about android phones so I didn't check) and they are liable to pay damages and other consequences, but nobody of the people involved would get a criminal record because of this. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Logging and journaling
On 2017-02-11 at 22:51:57 +, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > do you know the history of hans reiser? is his software available > today? given his history, if his software *was* available today, do > you think anyone would want to install it and use it? why not? it's > free software, right? you can change it, keep it, it's entirely under > a libre license... so what's the problem? Actually, yes, his software *is* available today: according to wikipedia (and to a quick ``ls /lib/modules/4.9.0-1-amd64/kernel/fs/reiserfs/``) ReiserFS is still available in the linux kernel, altought probably used more to access legacy systems than for new deployments. Of course, by this time it's no longer "his software", but more software that belongs to the community, based on code written by Hans Reiser but then modified by multiple people in the meanwhile. I strongly suspect that the fact that it is an early 2000s filesystem with no modern features is more relevant to the fact that very few people are using it today than the private life of its main (but not only) developer. IIRC its decline had already started before the murder / arrest, because developement on it had already stopped, and new features where being added to Reiser4 (which was never ready for acceptance in mainline, however). -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Logging and journaling
On 2017-02-11 at 17:47:18 +0100, Philip Hands wrote: > > https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-2118 > > That should be: > > https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-10156 uops, thanks, big duckduckgoing-fail on my part (I searched for the CVE number + debian, and didn't check that I was actually opening the right one) -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Logging and journaling
On 2017-02-11 at 13:21:05 +, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/24/systemd_flaw/ > > "Newer" versions of systemd deployed by Fedora or Ubuntu have been > secured, but Debian systems are still running an older version and > therefore need updating. Debian backports (when possibile) security fixes to the packages they distribute; a quick check for the CVE listed in that article shows that most debian systems should be fine: https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-2118 note that security fixes are released through the " (security)" repository and only merged in "" when there is a point update of it (every few months for as long as the release is supported) and most systems do have the security repository enabled (that happens by default with the installer and is considered a good practice). Wheezy is still listed as vulnerable, but that's because it's out of regular support (since april 2016, currently only under LTS_ support), and thus there won't be another point release to include the changes published via the (security) repo. .. _LTS: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Logging and journaling
On 2017-02-09 at 10:53:02 -0500, Adam Van Ymeren wrote: > On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Tzafrir Cohen > wrote: > > That is: you don't like systemd? fine. Installing Debian without it is > > rather simple: > > https://wiki.debian.org/systemd#Installing_without_systemd > > Please don't spread this mis-information. Installing Debian without > systemd is far from simple, and many things just won't work right as > systemd has become a dependency on more and more packages. > > It's possible, yes, but it's not simple, not supported, and tends to leave > the user debugging weird behaviours. This is mostly false: installing debian without libsystemd0 is not supported. Lots of packages have added optional support for systemd, so they are built linking that *648 bytes* library to access it *when available*. Not doing so would require multiple builds of all packages and that would lead to mainteinance hell. Using another init system on debian is fully supported, mandatory on non-linux archs (sadly, none of them are release archs, but people are still working on them). Since less people are using it it is likely that there are bugs and that it will take more time to find them, but please if you do *report them*, they will be taken care of as any other bug (i.e. not always, because sometimes maintainers disappear). The only way to be sure that other init systems will die completely in Debian is not reporting bugs, because that way the maintainers have no idea that they exists and no chance to fix them. Running GNOME without systemd is a different beast: I don't know if it has happened already, but sooner or later systemd will be required because of an *upstream* decision. Debian fully supports a number of other Desktop Environment and window managers, some of which (e.g. KDE/Plasma) have a committed to being multi-platform and thus will not for the foreseeable future force the use of systemd. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' - who is very grateful to the systemd maintainers in Debian because they are dealing with *that* upstream and are managing to protect us users from some upstream insanities. ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Debian GNU/Linux, nonfree software, and FSF's free distros list
On 2016-10-17 at 19:46:21 +0200, Elena ``of Valhalla'' wrote: > I see that there has been a BOF_ about collaboration between Debian and > the FSF at the latest Debconf, but I haven't seen the video, so I don't > know what was said (yet, I may have just found something to watch in the > near future) apparently I a) forgot the link, which is https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/91/ b) forgot that I did try to watch that video, but it's missing the first 20 minutes or so of audio (it's in the known issues at http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2016/debconf16/README.txt ) -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Debian GNU/Linux, nonfree software, and FSF's free distros list
On 2016-10-17 at 10:02:26 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: > I wish Debian and the FSF would work together to resolve this issue. They are, more or less: there has been quite some activity a few years ago which lead to some changes, but work seems to have stalled (the `mailing list`_ isn't seeing much traffic lately) .. _`mailing list`: https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-collab-discuss I suspect that what changes could be agreed on have been done, while most other cases are points where they had to agree to disagree, such as the freedom status of the FSF docs and the existence of non-free. I see that there has been a BOF_ about collaboration between Debian and the FSF at the latest Debconf, but I haven't seen the video, so I don't know what was said (yet, I may have just found something to watch in the near future) > It shouldn't be that hard to modify Debian so that `non-free` is only ever > used based on an explicit user request (and to let the user specify > that this explicit request only applies this one time). It is, already. users already have to explicitely accept (in some cases that involve hardware support) or request (in all other cases) that non-free is enabled. There is disagreement on how hard it should be to do so, with the FSF considering what Debian choose to do "too easy". > Along the same lines, the `non-free` section should be split in two: > `proprietary`, `non-dfsg`, where the `non-dfsg` part would only contain > packages which the DFSG rejects as non-free but which many people in the > Free Software world consider Free nevertheless (basically FSF's docs). If something is not-DFSG is by definition proprietary as far as Debian is concerned. There have been talks about dividing non-free, however, splitting out the firmwares (that lots of people consider a necessary evil for another few years), documentation (for which some people including the FSF tend to have lower requirements) and everything else (the really evil stuff) There was agreement on this split, but I suspect that it has been stuck in a lack of volunteer time. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Debian GNU/Linux, nonfree software, and FSF's free distros list
On 2016-10-15 at 18:06:52 -0500, J.B. Nicholson wrote: > Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > > You can install an entirely free system with no non-free components. > > > > You can also install Debian without taking account of any recommends. > But the recommends and suggests fields are still listing nonfree software, > which was the FSF's issue. Not accepting the suggestions or recommendations > doesn't address the issue the FSF raised in Sullivan's DebConf talk. Suggests, yes, but Recommends to software in non-free shouldn't be there as they are forbidden by the policy https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-main If you find one, please file a bug so that it can be removed (either because the Recommends wasn't really supposed to be there, or by moving the package to contrib, if it really needs non-free software to work) -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Code of conduct?
On 2016-09-17 at 09:05:00 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > correct. one of the things that i love about free software is that > most people are completely anonymous behind a wall of plain text. we > don't give a fuck about people's gender, or race, or age, or size, or > any other fuckwit politically bullshit-orientated delusionary > attitudes. this, sadly, it not true, except maybe for a few very specific cases. Humans are extremely good at getting hints that help put people in specific bins, and they can often do so even from just written texts: the most obvious think is finding out people's gender from their name (and these days working from a pseudonim that is not connected to your legal name is much rarer than it used to be), but you can also get hints about nationality (or at least native language, for people for whom english is a second language) and ethnicity from the errors (in the former case) and the non-standard usages (in the latter), and of course people of different generations do use different expressions. Of course these hints have an even bigger failure rate than the ones available in-person, but they still work in enough cases that they keep being reinforced. One big problem with this is that it mostly happens at an instinctive level, so people may *honestly* believe that they aren't doing any discrimination, and that they are giving everybody the same chances. > if you have the self belief to step forward onto a public > mailing list and can speak with a rational and clear voice, and this already requires a higher effort from about half of humanity who for centuries has been trained from a very young age that stepping forward in public is something that they are not supposed to do. Note that I don't believe that a free software community can do anything to solve *this* problem, it's just something that I believe it's worth remembering. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] [libreplanet-discuss] EOMA68 and freedom in digital technology
On 2016-09-10 at 20:38:34 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > you're also aware that with the sole exception of > the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is > auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the > actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files? That's false: for the boards marked with the OSHW logo (which include the olinuxino boards and a number of microcontroller based ones, but not the SOM ones) schematics are provided, either as a zip file in the product page or in a github repository: https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO It is true that most of those schematics are in Eagle format, and thus can't be opened with Free Software (which is the reason I didn't actually open them), and they are only moving on to using Kicad for the later boards, but that's definitely not the same as not providing schematics at all. > [...] > you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel, from shipping > GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back > around 2011/2012? > [...] > now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires > non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down > and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product. While it's true that you are not violating the GPL yourself (thankfully!) by not using Allwinner-provided code, if (and that's a HUGE if) violating a civil law (copyright) turns a company into a criminal cartel then you are working with a criminal cartel yourself, since Allwinner is still violating the GPL with their new processors. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] need help! getting a bit overwhelmed on lists.oshwa.org
On 2016-08-25 at 10:23:04 +0200, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote: > El Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 09:07:13AM +0200, Elena ``of Valhalla'' deia: > > In this specific case, additionally, the dividing line is placed in such > > a way that IMHO gives advantages to state-sponsored attackers (for whom > > changing code stored on ROM is not exactly easy, but somewhat feasible) > > and even technical users (that in most case don't have access to the > > tools needed to do so). > You mean intercepting postal packets or sabotages in douanes or check > control points ? I don't know how to protect from that (at least > without imposing too cumbersone measures to normal use by the > legitimate user). yes, stuff like that, and I don't really know how to protect from them either. But surely having the code in ROM doesn't really help in that case, while when the code is loaded at runtime one could in theory just load new code from a different source. Doesn't really work in practice because there is something else accepting that code that is stored in something like a ROM and could have been changed to silently ignore it. > [...] > In my message I called software "information", not knowledge, because > in the uses I've come across knowledge is reserved for the > interiosation of interrelated information by humans, it is what > information provokes in you (and let's not get started in strong > AI). But yes, if you take humans into the picture, software is > knowledge and it is even culture. Yes, information may be a better term, altought they can be seen as two faces of the same entity (and thus, don't change the set of things that are hardware or software under the original definition) > So a tivoized device may not hide any > information or knowledge but it may prevent you from changing the > representation that the device will use. It won't prevent you from > working freely with the knowledge, "just" with the device. Well, a tivoized device will probably allow me to work freely with some of the information, but not other (the ones involved with preventing you access to the device itself, for one thing) > And your definition has more or less the same problem as mine. > Knowledge may be secret, so something may be knowledge for some people > and not for others, just like something may be easier to change for > some people than others. Compiled proprietary software is software in a > degenerated way, but it is. And the source is only available for some, > for the rest of us it is very opaque information, you can hardly call > that knowledge at all. So it is knowledge for the authors, not for > the users. Yes, software is information/knowledge, not necessarily *free* knowledge, but in my definition it's stuff for which it is reasonable to ask the question "is it free?" > > My personal pragmatic position is that buying (and in certain case > > using) things is ok from a freedom point of view as long as they > > have a bit more free software than the current standard (either as > > sold or after I've changed stuff that is easy — and legal — *for me* > > to change, depending on the context and the kind of market). > > So your goal is your utopy? Or do you think you could eventually > achieve it? In theory, I think that it could be reached, but I'm not sure if the market forces will ever allow it. I would be happy even to see constant improvements, even if the actual aim wasn't reached in my lifetime, so yes, there is a bit of utopy in it. > I'm not sure I understand you. What you want is a computer, so a > certain collection of atoms, that embodies some information and you > want to be able to freely use all the embodied knowledge. So for you > that includes software and hardware designs (both are the computer > software for you, right?). An then the hardware designs have been > applied to atoms according to some electronics process you may also > want to know, along with the physical properties of gates, materials, > and energies. And the physical models that describe how the properties > interact dynamically, so basically all of chemistry, physics and > electronics solved for good and finished ? well, no, I would stop at the process phase, described in a way that can be reproduced, including the building of relevant tools, even if in practice some of this information is going to be too expensive for most people to actually use (and, more importantly, there are serious practical issues with bootstrapping the equipement required to do so). In the basic sciences there are significant issues with the dissemination of information, but at least people working on them tend to share the principles that knowledge should be available and not kept secr
Re: [Arm-netbook] need help! getting a bit overwhelmed on lists.oshwa.org
On 2016-08-25 at 09:35:12 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > A definition that I like comes from Renzo Davoli and is basically that > > hardware is made of atoms, software is knowledge. > > ROMs are made of atoms whose internal organization defines the behavior. yes, and the description of that internal organization, whatever the format, is software > And while you can pass to someone a copy of the "source" (or binary) for > that ROM, it's not the same as the ROM (the person has to build the ROM > based on that code), so I think Renzo's definition very agrees that ROM > is hardware. of course the actual chip is hardware, but if somebody had the information stored on it in some other form, with the right tools and the right skills they could "easily" remove those atoms and change them with other atoms with the same information — or with a modified version of it. It's not that different from a paper book: there you have an arrangement of ink atoms on a paper substrate that is hardware, but the knowledge provided by the book is software. As with a paper book, sharing the information/knowledge is not as trivial as with information in a non-encoumbered digital format, but with some work it is perfectly feasible to do so in a way that doesn't deprive the original owner of it. And besides, also hard disks (and solid state memories, etc.) store stuff as an arrangement of atoms, it's just that those also provide a convenient interface both to read and to change it. > > Of course, under this definition, today in 2016 it is impossible to buy > > a computer¹ whose software is completely free. > > I think the usual A20 boards qualify: they have some ROM holding > proprietary code within the SoC, but since that's hardware it's OK, and > you can run pure Free Software on it (you may need proprietary software > if you want to use MALI, and you may also need proprietary firmware to > use surrounding wifi chips, of course). I don't think so, at all. The knowledge on how the A20 internals are made is not freely available: even if I had access to the right expensive equipment I couldn't legally produce one. The same applies to the handful of task-specific chips that those boards usually have. Then there is that proprietary code, that is stored in hardware, but is very much software. And then of course whatever comes around it (mali drivers, wifi chips, disk firmwares, etc.) The A20 boards are fine (for me) today because there is nothing that is significantly more free that is able to do the same things, just like running GNU on a proprietary kernel was fine in the 80s before a free kernel was available, but it still very far from the ideal. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] need help! getting a bit overwhelmed on lists.oshwa.org
On 2016-08-24 at 09:54:35 +0200, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote: > For me anything hard to change is hardware, anything easy to change is > software. Hence the sensible FSF position on software on ROMs > being like hardware and software in EEPROMs being like software. I find that definitions based on how easy it is to change something tend to put the actual dividing line in places that feel arbitrary, especially because what is easy for somebody is very hard for somebody else. In this specific case, additionally, the dividing line is placed in such a way that IMHO gives advantages to state-sponsored attackers (for whom changing code stored on ROM is not exactly easy, but somewhat feasible) and even technical users (that in most case don't have access to the tools needed to do so). A definition that I like comes from Renzo Davoli and is basically that hardware is made of atoms, software is knowledge. With this definition, programs are of course software, firmware is software, verilog descriptions of a CPU are software, board designs are software (but not the boards themselves), and also culture, literature, music etc. are software, and kitchen recipes, but not the actual dishes that you eat. This way, the difference is a deep one: if I give somebody a piece of hardware, I no longer have it, in a zero sum game, while if I give somebody a piece of software we both have it and the total value for humanity has grown. Of course, under this definition, today in 2016 it is impossible to buy a computer¹ whose software is completely free. My personal pragmatic position is that buying (and in certain case using) things is ok from a freedom point of view as long as they have a bit more free software than the current standard (either as sold or after I've changed stuff that is easy — and legal — *for me* to change, depending on the context and the kind of market). e.g. in 2016 an A20 based board that respects the definition of Open Hardware from OSHWA is fine, but if in 2026 we'll have a SoC for which the verilog sources are available a board based on a proprietary chip like the A20 won't be fine anymore, even if I have no practical way to get advantage of the difference. ¹ using in this case the very imprecise and personal definition of "something on which I can run a text editor, vi-based, thanks, and a graphical web browser, with the ability to connect to the internet" -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] Rebuilding official OS images?
On 2016-07-29 at 12:03:58 -0500, Matt Campbell wrote: > Are there scripts somewhere for building the official OS images for the A20 > card, from official distro package repositories, using debootstrap or the > equivalent tool for other distros? Debian has support for a number of A20 boards in the official installer: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner the EOMA68 board is still not supported, but if a device tree blob is available it is possible to use it with a bit of manual work https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner#Installing_on_systems_that_are_not_supported_out_of_the_box You do need a serial interface (the debian installer runs on it, because it's the common denominator of all supported boards, and autodetecting the output device wasn't trivial): I don't know if it is easily available on the EOMA68 A20 board. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] 12th update
On 2016-07-18 at 15:20:56 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > > Pyra. > > pyra's the upgraded version of the openpandora. and? featurewise it's not very far from being a viable low-power laptop. -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] crowdfunding page is live
On 2016-07-07 at 18:41:36 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > hey guys, you'll love this i'm sure... > http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/eoma68_fish.png is it a good idea to enter *that* controversy? -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] eoma68-jz4775 x-ray pictures
On 2016-04-29 at 14:21:12 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > that's fine, because it's outside of the remit of the company that > got the RYF Certificate. skype is *not* in a GNU repository, or in > the debian repository, or in any repository at all. it's not actually, skype is in one ubuntu repository, which if I'm not mistaken at least trisquel users could add https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype 3rd party repositories for other proprietary software are often available and adding them usually requires just about the same level of tech-expertise as adding non-free to debian (or to gNewSense). > i don't really like to use the words "idiots" - let's call them > "average end-users" instead (examples include "grandma" or "busy > secretary" or "7-year-old" or "49-year-old farm mechanic and cattle > breeder") actually, 'grandma' tends to be quite discriminatory and offensive, considering that a woman can easily be of grandma age and still be an IT professional (probably near retirement, but not necessarily). > average end-users simply cannot cope with the "jumping through hoops" > - they haven't got time. if they really need to, they'll go buy a > windows PC. or a mac. and that's fine. we're not catering to them, > and neither is the FSF. so it is fine for anybody who is not a tech expert to be forced to buy a mainstream spying device, while software freedom is just for people who can afford spending their time jumping through hoops? -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
Re: [Arm-netbook] eoma68-jz4775 x-ray pictures
On 2016-04-25 at 14:34:15 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Paul Boddie wrote: > > Debian is available for mipsel. > ... but debian isn't FSF-Endorseable, but its main repository has been recognised as a valid distribution to use to check whether some bit of hardware is compatibile with free software: https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-users-find-the-hardware-they-need -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netb...@files.phcomp.co.uk
