Re: free/open technology for home heating systems
Hi Daniel, * Daniel Pocock [2018-01-22 10:20:35 +0100]: There are government grants in Ireland for heating controls, I put more details on my blog[1]. I read you blog post and the Heating Controls Grant page https://www.seai.ie/grants/home-grants/better-energy-homes/heating-upgrade-grants/ good luck for your grant! Is anybody aware of technology for this purpose that is running free software and interfaces with free/open standards? ouch! standards in home automation... good luck :-S I'm definitely not an expert in this matter but I'm hacking since 2016 in my spare time home automation systems are composed by a controller and a set of sensors/actuators, I want a _full_stack_free_sofware_ solution in my home, including actuators and sensors an interesting source of info is https://www.mysensors.org/, see https://www.mysensors.org/about/components for an introduction on the infrastructure unfortunately many actuators/sensors comes with proprietary software installed and no way to replace it with a free one https://home-assistant.io/ is one of the major free software home automation controllers and is able to interface to **a lot** of components (sensors and actuators) on the market: https://home-assistant.io/components/, climate including https://home-assistant.io/components/#climate one of the components is the Generic Thermostat https://home-assistant.io/components/climate.generic_thermostat/ you could use to tunr on/off your zone heating system based on the temperature reported from a sensor from the same zone... this obviously works only if you have one heating system for each zone (rare case, I guess) in my home (Italy) I have a central heating system and each radiator is controlled by a manual valve, I'm still searching a way to interface a controller (i.e. home-assistant) whith **free software** remotely controlled radiator valves; this is an example of the current results: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=home+assistant+radiator+valve=ffsb=web Can this be achieved using a custom solution with Raspberry Pi or similar devices running free software? the problem is the "devices" (aka actuators, like radiator valves for example) part of the infrastructure: I'm not aware of a free software operated one ciao Giovanni 1. https://danielpocock.com/keeping-an-irish-home-warm-and-free -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Exodus project and DRM - evicences of spyware on Android apps (iOS not allowed)
Hi all, «Without that evidentiary basis, there's no way to know you need self-help measures, nor is there any way to convince regulators to take action,» Cory Doctorow nice article (as usual) https://boingboing.net/2017/11/25/la-la-la-cant-hear-you.html explains us why Yale Privacy Lab [1] and Exodus Privacy [2] **cannot** give the world scietific evidences that similar spyware is **likely** (there are rumors) also distributed in similar iOS apps «iOS is DRM-locked and it's a felony -- punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense in the USA under DMCA 1201, and similar provisions of Article 6 of the EUCD in France where Exodus is located -- to distribute tools that bypass this DRM, even for the essential work of discovering whether billions of people are at risk due to covert spying from the platform.» I believe this is another strong evidence to offer to the EU Council and Parliament to review EUCD and never again permit _code_ like DRM to **become the judge** of what can and cannot be done with digital works could be this one oincluded in a _curated_ section of "evidences" in http://drm.info ? ciao Giovanni [1] https://privacylab.yale.edu/ [2] https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/ reports for many apps: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/ -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Updates on policy goal "Consumer rights and device sovereignty"?
Ciao, please are there any updates about the 2014-2019 policy goal "Consumer rights and device sovereignty" and in general about all 2014-2019 policy goals https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/policy-goals.html ? if there are blog posts about goals statis or some updates where discussed in this or other public mailing lists a simple link should do its job :-) ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: CPU as a service // MINIX in Intel ME
Dear Jann, * Jann KRUSE [2017-11-28 21:23:54 +]: Update: Have been exploited... (And you wouldn't even realize it!) https://www.blackhat.com/eu-17/briefings/schedule/#how-to-hack-a-turned-off-computer-or-running-unsigned-code-in-intel-management-engine-8668 as you correctly pointed out below, the real problem is not unintentional occurrence of exploitable bugs: this is normal on all OSs and can be addressed (with various level of difficulty, **very** hardly in this case) «To root, or not to root, that is the question:» who have root access to the hyper-hyper-visor? this soon leads to the following questions: 1 is root access documented anywhere on earth? 2 how can I manage the root password in order to be compliant with national mandatory security regulations? [1] mumble, mumble... [...] In short: We are essentially being forced, without even being told, to run buggy proprietary code in a very powerful and very capable hyper-hyper-visori very nice executive ultra-summary thanks! :-) Ciao Giovanni [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-security_regulation there are a **lot** of mandatory regulations considering password management _vital_ to the security of IT infrastructure -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: CPU as a service has come!
Hi Paul, * Paul Boddie [2017-11-28 23:06:24 +0100]: On Monday 27. November 2017 13.52.55 Giovanni Biscuolo wrote: please also consider that many respectable free software supporters are proposing solutions that are **useless tech workarounds**; e.g. looking at https://privacylab.yale.edu/ , in the "What we do" box, I read: "Hosting Tor", "providing TAILS OS", "hardened GNU/Linux", privacy-respecting tools such as PGP/GPG e-mail and E2EE messaging... I know that you're trying to communicate that control of the hardware is essential, yes, and since I know that **useless* sounds harsh, I must comment about this I seriously *love* and use each of the above mentioned projects _and_ have a profound sense of gratitude for the people behind them; I also know that using that software is *much* better than not to use them (I'd be not here ;-) ) that said, please consider I used the term **useless** as an analogy in this context: «The summer of 2013 will remain the moment we finally realized how broken the Internet was [1], and how much this had been abused.» (http://youbroketheinternet.org/) [1] http://secushare.org/broken-internet this page presents a serious analysis of the inherent problems of Internet design and currently proposed solutions, unfortunately just tech workarounds (useless in the context of __documented__ abuses, we still do not know nothing about the _undocumented_ ones) so, as long as the statement "Internet is broken by design" should _not_ be discarded just because it's harsh **and** it does not mean people should not use privacy and anonymity enhancing measures provided by the workarounds when using Internet, please consider not to trash away my **useless tech workarounds** "label" :-) in other words (sorry if I'm stressing on this), some computing devices have become **virtual machines** running in a stealth host with a complete OS running on it; you have not root access to the host, just to the virtual machine (NIBM - aka not invented by me) everyone relying on virtual machines must know what it means from a privacy and anonymity POV I'm fine using virtual machines, I'm using a lot of them for my business and for my customers... so to paraphrase the #youbroketheinternet statement above: «The autumn of 2018 will remain the moment Giovanni Biscuolo finally realized how broken *his* computing devices was, and how much this could be abused; anyway he absolutely trusts his vendors, providers, local government and all other governments around the world and he is confident his broken devices will **never** be abused by the unknown root user» but those other things still complement efforts to maintain overall control of our computing environments, uphold privacy, and so on. As such, they are not useless. sorry but I disagree with you :-) they are very useful for a broad spectrum of attack vectors, but useless on virtual machines for *narrow* but potentially destructive attack vectors [...] then openly wonder why anyone would bother encrypting things or running secure operating systems. never said that: I bother encryption and all other security, privacy and anonymity tech... but they are limited and I use it for a plenty of _other_ reasons (e.g. I use LUKS on all my hosts in case of theft) So we need to consider all of these things, or at least many of them. These days, I constantly find myself reminding people to beware of the zero-sum game, as they promote their favourite things at the expense of other, equally worthwhile things. This is no different. I'm not promoting anything, I'm just questioning the proposed solutions in the light of this new "discovery" ...not true, I'm _promoting_ a serious question: can the market alone fix the "CPU as a service" issue? I've no solution Ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: CPU as a service has come!
s *just* to get rid of the most toxic "features" deeply
buried in their servers
we *need* the constitutional right to buy a device or sign an hosting
contract and trust the vendor will not use his physical access power to
break the security of such devices *by design*
OK, I've stressed this enough :-D
Going
forward one relatively easy way to deal with the problem is to put the
data-slurping proprietary applications on a dedicated x86 machine that's
isolated from the wider Internet as much as possible, and use rdesktop
or similar to connect from a secure machine.
I respect this proposed solution *but* this is just a temporary (and costly)
workaround... and I'm not willing to follow you on this path :-)
considering we are going towards an even increasing **broken Internet of
broken computing Things**™ the "final consequence" of this _could_ likely be
that one day those who wants to be free will be forced to opt-out from
_every_ "form" of their digital life and choose to be "analog only" [3] :-O
concluding: I want that my right to use interconnected digital devices
_remaining a free human being_ will be treated as a **constitutional**
fundamental right, all other policies and market regulation decisions
should be consequent
[...]
Ciao
Giovanni
[1] http://youbroketheinternet.org/legislation/ObCrypto-law-proposal.pdf
[2] in Italy we are used to read messages like "è _severamente_ vietato"
("it's severely forbidden"): it always sound very funny to many of us :-)
[3] the infamous "blue or red phial" dilemma from Douglas Hofstadter's 1979
book Gödel, Escher, Bach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill#G.C3.B6del.2C_Escher.2C_Bach
still inspiring many fictions
--
Giovanni Biscuolo
Xelera - IT infrastructures
http://xelera.eu/contact-us/
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OFFLIST - Re: psychotic disorders of (few) web market operators and, privacy less valued than pizza
Hi. * Mat Witts [2017-11-26 11:34:23 +]: [...] I think the reasons available for bad behavior are already overdetermined by the characteristics of markets more generally, I _suspect_ that when talking with policy makers they need to be persuaded *also* using interesting studies like the Freedom to Tinker one _and_ the "pizza effect" one in particular, as I wrote, I'm really curious to see if and how GDPR will be able to protect users "from themselves" and the ethical limitations of market-led policies and incentives I hope do not need to be rehearsed in a forum connected to discussing (among other things) the benefits of free software? ehrm... I *fear* we need a _constant_ reharshal of this kind of discussion because the phenomenology of "private computing agency" is complex and every new "discovery" may help understand it I personally know free software supporters (I'm not talking specifically of FSFE supporters) who do not understand the dangers of proprietary javascripts Ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: psychotic disorders of (few) web market operators and, privacy less valued than pizza
* Mat Witts [2017-11-26 11:34:23 +]: I just discovered this study from "Freedom to tinker" [1] that clearly shows clinic evidence of psychotic disorders by few web market operators [...] I think the article referenced may be this: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/11/15/no-boundaries-exfiltration-of-personal-data-by-session-replay-scripts/ thank you! my footnote was incomplete I was too stressed by concurrent activities at the time of writing and I've an old CPU and too few RAM: in this conditions sometimes I'm overloaded or get OOM exceptions... sorry :-S [...] Ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
ERRATA: psychotic disorders of (few) web market operators and privacy less valued than pizza
Hi Duncan, * Duncan [2017-11-26 00:35:00 +]: I do not think it's appropriate to speculate on the mental health of people thank you for you comment, you made me realize I made a bad mistake! I did never (ever!) intend to be personal but sometimes my approximate use of language make me dramatically fail *** so my apologies to all of you! *** I should have used the term "companies" and _not_ "market operators", sorry so when reading my previous message please substitute "market operators" with "companies" for sure by using the term "psychotic disorder" I was *not politically correct*, but I made it on purpose: I wanted to provoke _scandal_ mine was a rhetorical hyperbole, let me put this way: *if* one those few companies where a person - e.g. an husband pretending to track her wife in a *similar way*, even if his justification would be to keep her safe from potential web stalkers or similar kind of threats - I believe that a similar behavior would be considered a psychotic disorder by a specialist (IANAP); it would also be an illegal practice (IANAL) if you like a more politically correct interpretation, I find the behavior of the few companies that market such an insane user tracking method is antisocial and against every constitutional principle; it will also be an illegal practice (GDPR) please also consider that I'm a (tiny) web market operator too, and I _love_ to make business with the web: given GDPR soon my competitors using those methods will be **unfair competitors**; they will also be outlaw :-) again, my apologies for I have been _unintentionally_ personal I know well that people marketing this tracking practice are not psychotic, they are simply greedy and for that they want excessive control over the users of their customers «Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in [their] eye?» (Matthew 7:3-5) ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
MINIX on ring -3: CPU as a service has come!
* Giovanni Biscuolo [2017-11-24 17:19:23 +0100]: glad my glamorous title obtained your attention :-D sorry I'm an idiot since I did not realized that my joke on "Black Friday" *almost surely* means that someone deleted my message as SPAM, in this case you can find it in the archives: https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2017-November/012060.html [...] ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
next FSFE community meeting (was Re: an FSFE hackathon?)
Hi, * Erik Albers [2017-11-24 12:27:06 +0100]: [...] physical restrictions. If you would like to participate read all details on the dedicated wiki-page: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2017/the-fsfe-community-meeting-2017 I'll be far away from Berlin on the next two days and cannot come and tell this in person please someone that will attent at least consider mentioning this very intereting project: http://youbroketheinternet.org/ looking at https://mobile.twitter.com/youbrokethenet they are from Berlin too: please offer them a beer in my name, if they'll be around :-) kudos! ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Black Friday Last Minute: CPU as a service has come!
Hi all, glad my glamorous title obtained your attention :-D I'm joking about Black Friday, I'm _not_ joking about "CPU as a service" since the issue I recently labeled in this ML as the "MINIX on ring -3 discovery" is not clear to at least one of my FSFE-pen-friends, I have be more specific also, please I would like to know if and eventually how FSFE will address this kind of issues when talking with EU or local representatives about the "Consumer rights and device sovereignty" policy goal for 2019 https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/policy-goals/consumer-rights.en.html considering what I'm going to show here, we should definitely extend the device sovereignty to **all users**: public and private companies, governments and all other institutions too, not only consumers (ouch!) :-O ...so please also remind EU and local representative that **(part of) their (sorry: our) IT systems are also affected** by this serious issue Executive summary -- «One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them» on all Intel processors sold after 2008 there's a running *proprietary* variation of the not copyleft free software MINIX 3 (unknown version), MINIX is running in "ring -3" [1] now we have the proofs that: 1. **no** "user facing OS" operating system have final control of the x86 platform 2. between the "user facing OS" and the hardware there are at least 2 ½ OS kernels (MINIX and UEFI) 3. these are proprietary and very likely exploit-friendly 4. the exploits can persist, i.e. be written to FLASH, and you can't fix that 5. the user have _no access_ to the MINIX running in ring -3 MINIX is running on three separate x86 cores on modern chips, on that OS are running: 1. TCP/IP networking stacks (4 and 6) 2. File systems 3. Drivers (disk, net, USB, mouse) 4. Web servers please **do not** consider this kind of issues specific to a single brand of CPUs, since we still do not have proofs but the development path is the very same *** Are you scared yet? If you're not scared yet, maybe I didn't explain it very well, because I sure am scared. *** (Ronald Minnich) The not so short story --- the fact: on Wednesday, October 25 2017 Ronald Minnich from Google told the world about this: «With the WikiLeaks release of the vault7 material, the security of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware used in most PCs and laptops is once again a concern. UEFI is a proprietary and closed-source operating system, with a codebase almost as large as the Linux kernel, that runs when the system is powered on and continues to run after it boots the OS (hence its designation as a “Ring -2 hypervisor"). It is a great place to hide exploits since it never stops running, and these exploits are undetectable by kernels and programs.» this article presents a short version of the story: http://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-operating-system/ I used this for my executive summary ;-) the issue is **not** new (known since 2016, at least) and presented many times also in FSF/FSFE "circles", eg. here https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/intel-me-and-why-we-should-get-rid-of-me and here https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html EFF and Matthew Garrett where more specific about the nature of the issue on May 8 2017 here https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/intels-management-engine-security-hazard-and-users-need-way-disable-it and here https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/48429.html so: what's new now?!? since October 25 (save the date!) what **is** new is that we have a scientific proof of the real nature of this _mess_ ...and we know that Google *is* _desperately_ trying to get rid of this issue from their systems *but* they are failing to fully do this please enjoy the full Garrett's talk in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffTJ1vPCSo he said: "always use coreboot if you can, but if you are stuck with a situation..." (29:21 of the video) ... libreboot is maybe better, IMHO so, ladies and gentlemen I'll introduce you "CPU as a service" do we have to accept an EULA?!? ciao Giovanni [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring what the hell is ring -3 ?!?! who "invented" it? where is it documented? should we expect to see "ring -9" in the future? how we could even allow anyone in the world to implement such a perverted environment? -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: Free software and open source philosophies differ, sometimes with radically different outcomes
* Adonay Felipe Nogueira [2017-11-22 11:24:30 -0200]: [...] Alessandro Rubini made an interesting point: market dominance isn't addressed with free/libre software philosophy (nor with its products). ehrm: Rubini did *not* said that 2017-11-22T12:37:50+0100 Alessandro Rubini wrote: [...] As for being pro-business, it doesn't mean being pro-monopolists or pro-corporations or pro-capitalist. amen! pro-business != pro-domination ?!? :-) [...] If you are anti-business, you fall into "free for non-commercial use", amen! and now let's pray together: Saint'IGNUtius, ora pro nobis... :-D [...] Trying to stay out of the market is self-destructive cannot be self-destructive because it's **impossible** from a philosophy of economy point of view: the market reaches you anywhere you can hide :-D to be clear: no one could even *imagine* that someone can stay out of the market, at the same time no one can even *imagine* the market does not change in history (at least to find an equilibrium) we are here to _shape_ the software market of the coming future, aren't we? ciao Giovanni P.S.: OK I'll rest at least for a couple of days, I swear! :-) -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: Free software and open source philosophies differ,, sometimes with radically different outcomes
Hi all, I gave my little contribution to this discussion (maybe to confusion also, sorry!) and I have nothing to add to all I said my *last* thought: please consider that this thread is becoming too long and too wide in scope to be manageable, there are very interesting contributions from everyone involved but we cannot manage all this in a single thread... especially if we extend the subject in infinite and orthogonal directions of course anyone is free to go on and discuss anything but we are loosing focus (the subject is **philosophic**... "derailed" to politics) * Mat Witts [2017-11-22 06:25:14 +]: [...] Not quite, what I am doing is suggesting that a persons political beliefs can be broadly predicted using some basic knowledge of Open Source and Free Software principles and established social and political theory. no, it's not so easy or - if you dare - "all it's easy when you have learned to do so", and even when you have managed to do so it's a *very* dialectical discourse that implies _a lot_ of other discourses (including psychology): I'm not willing to go on on this path in **this** context, it's a **very** loosing focus path :-) we must be able to politically work with anyone willing to affirm the freedoms associated with the Free Software definition *and* Open Source Definition, coming from a _different_ philosophical path *but* affirming the same freedoms in other words, sorry if I insist, philosophical discourse is **by definition** a dialectical one... and in this context we've had _a lot_ of dialectics, we need a rest :-D You are of course at liberty to reject those theories and the basis for them if you think they are unreliable. no no no, not here: I beg you! It would be _very_ interesting to me but such a discussion would need a 3 day conference 24/h just to say: «Hallo, I think» :-D (I'm joking, please smile with me!) if someone it's willing to organize a conference about "Philosophical implications of the four freedoms of Free Software" I'll be very happy to attend (I'm not joking) I say this because the technologies don't only exist as ideas, they are working communities or 'paradigms' that shape (or deform) the working lives of millions of human persons. agreed, AFAIK (and read) this consciousness is in the DNA of FSFE dince day 0 I would say what you have articulated here seems to strengthen the point about the confusion (meaning 'mixed up' or 'combinatorial' or 'blend') between communitarian vs. pro-business imperatives [...] say shows signs of a libertarian vocabulary, a kind of 'compassionate capitalism' perhaps. it seems to me (it **seems**) that you and many others identify the business freedom *included* in the FS philosophy and the related "pro-business" attitude with capitalism and/or capitalists markets I'm not the one who can teach anyone the difference, but please consider this identification is **not** appropriate [...] OK, I need a rest bye Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: Free software and open source philosophies differ sometimes with radically different outcomes
Hi, * Paul Boddie [2017-11-18 14:54:52 +0100]: One of those people even went on the record recently to boast that he had used his influence to eliminate his employer's financial support for one of the few organisations who can be bothered to pursue Free Software licence violations I don't know what you are talking about: please could you point me to the relevant news (a simple URL will do the job) ciao Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: Free software and open source philosophies differ sometimes with radically different outcomes
Hi everyone, I swear this are my fist and *last* two cents about this topic I'm considering (re)becoming a FSFE Supporter (ex Fellow) after some years of absence; I feel an urgency to to something after the (last) *desperation* [1] I suffered for the "MINIX on ring -3" "discovery", I hope to do it helping FSFE, FSF and cousins almost 20 years after this https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/02/msg01641.html "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again" (by Bruce Perens) I confess I feel *Comfortably Numb* about Open Source ad all related discussions, especially because we are - once again - **losing focus**: we all want a complete software stack (including ring -300) that respects all four user freedoms, it does not matter how much does it cost or how "cool" it will be for _any_ market vendor... do we?!?!? *fortunately* there are several FSFE official statements that definitely and unequivocally clears the discourse about FSFE supporting the use of the term Free Software and _not_ of Open Source, a *sine qua non* condition for me to be a supporter of any software association I refer to this statements: https://fsfe.org/about/basics/freesoftware.en.html#terminology «[Open Source] Nowadays, it is regularly used for everything between Free Software and the highly proprietary [software]» https://fsfe.org/about/principles.en.html «interest in our issues also creates desire to exploit them for particular personal interests regardless of the medium- and long-term effects.» although this is perplexing and somewhat contradictory: «We understand this sometimes means having to accept short-term or even medium-term disadvantages in order to remain true to our principles, which may be hard to communicate and occasionally even unpopular.» (disadvantages? what we are talking about?) and lastly this is "the final word" by FSFE: https://fsfe.org/documents/whyfs.en.html «Examining the development of the Open Source Initiative after three years, it becomes apparent that the reasons to prefer the term Free Software have become even more true.» (I suppose that "after 3 years" means that page was written around 2001) does FSFE considers that campaign still valid in 2017? * Jonas Oberg [2017-11-17 16:50:25 +0100]: [...] please remember this article, which is the comparison the FSFE points to officially when people ask: OK but please **all of us** also remember the above mentioned articles when people asks about Open Source is it really so hard to politely say: "please use the term Free Software, its ALL about freedom"? https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison.en.html [...] concentrate more on the practical benefits. Whether someone says Open Source or Free Software isn't necessarily an indication of their motivation. I find it in direct contradiction with https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison.en.html#id-why-we-call-it-free-software in particular: «Language is important because it frames how people think about a subject. The different terms focus on different aspects, even if they describe the same software.» this means that Open Source focus on a different motivation than what? than freedom "Language is important", to me, it's *the* tombstone of the "Open Source" term please consider I never mentioned Saint IGNUcius or others from heaven: I simply do not care who say what, I just care about the philosophy *and* philosophy is by definition inclusive :-D So please, no grouping of people based on what terminology they use. It is divisive and unnecessary. political declaration: I swear I'll respect - as she was my sister - anyone using the term "Open Source" and I'll be glad to work with her to achieve the full liberation of users from proprietary software domination I'll just politely and firmly make her clear that she is using the *wrong* term :-) ciao Giovanni [1] yes I was also desperate when I understood how much Internet is broken http://youbroketheinternet.org/ and how much my smartphones are *not* controlled by me (even using LinegeOS... still studying ReactOS) -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera - IT infrastructures http://xelera.eu/contact-us/ **per favore** Quota Bene: http://wiki.news.nic.it/QuotarBene **please** use Inline Reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
