Re: [PLUG] Why I won't be speaking at FOSSsumMIT 2104
On Aug 1, 2014, at 11:27 AM, ThinRhino thinrh...@gmail.com wrote: Folks, I was scheduled to give a talk at FOSSsumMIT 2104, but I was asked to use a Open Source License compliant operating system to give the talk. I have blogged about it in detail here - http://adityalaghate.in/no-to-symbolism.html [...] I believe Mayuresh has summarized the response very well, and I agree with it 100%. I'll add one more line - their conference, their rules. Good luck. There are other conference where freedom of choice is honored and are less totalitarian. ;-) -at ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] Linux Journal Readers' choice awards 2013
On Jan 3, 2014, at 10:54 AM, Mandar Vaze / मंदार वझे mandarv...@gmail.com wrote: Fir appears a yesteryears' favorite now with mere 4.8% share. (I use mutt and feel like an endangered species... danger of being driven away to some corner of an archaeological museum, with no idea about my wrongdoing.) species doesn't become extinct (archaeological museum reference) due to their own wrongdoing Think dinosaurs :) In case of techie - wrongdoing could be not moving with times [...] Can you elaborate what moving with times means? Tools of the newer times make me no more productive than those of yesteryear, so I don't see much a point. It is interesting when people compare market share - I merely say different folks, different strokes! :-) -ag ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] [OT] Tata Communications broadband - escalation contacts?
On Apr 7, 2013, at 7:37 PM, Mayuresh mayur...@acm.org wrote: On Sat, Apr 06, 2013 at 10:36:01PM +0530, Ashwin wrote: On 06-04-2013 09:02, Mayuresh wrote: My overall impression is wireless (3G/CDMA) plans and QoS are not yet comparable with wired connections. If they become so, I'll be happy to get rid of wired connection mess. Considering the same level of communication algorithms, encoding and error correction techniques being available for both - the wired being a guided and protected medium (protected from external interferences) will always remain better than wireless i.e. unguided It's alright that for higher bandwidths wired will remain a better medium. For personal use I am content with less than 1mbps (say 512-750kbps etc) as long as it is consistent. I think wireless should be capable of providing that much of speed reliably. They advertise speeds up to 3.1mbps (CDMA) and 7.1mbps (3G), though one doesn't even get 50kbps reliably - at least so with bsnl 3g. (Haven't tried others.) [...] The Mbps notation is mega bits per second, and not mega bytes, afaik, and it hasn't changed. I have been guilty of forgetting this to arrive at incorrect calculation if what my speed should be and what it is. -Amarendra ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] Creator of RSS passes away
On Jan 18, 2013, at 1:11 AM, Praveen A prav...@gmail.com wrote: 2013/1/15 ag@gmail amarendra.godb...@gmail.com: Thanks for this article - from various reading I had the same opinion. I think social activists should as well stop playing Robin Hood... They do more harm to the open software movement than good by such antics! I disagree. He is an inspiration. It is like the civil rights movement and civil disobedience. Was Gandhi breaking the law when he made salt at Danti? Was Martin Luther King breaking the law when he broke segregation law? Yes, but those resulted in changing laws. And there is already a new law being proposed in the US House that would fix CFAA, the archaic law that was used against Aaron. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/16njr9/im_rep_zoe_lofgren_im_introducing_aarons_law_to/ What we need is more of Aaron Swartz. Downloading research papers, which should be public anyway, does not deserve jail term of 35 years nor a fine of over 1 million dollars. It is maximum a terms of use violation and JSTOR did not press charges further. And the trespassing charge was not pushed by MIT either. So it is just making an example by US government. From The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime” I know a criminal hack when I see it, and Aaron’s downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet is not an offense worth 35 years in jail. The facts: MIT operates an extraordinarily open network. Very few campus networks offer you a routable public IP address via unauthenticated DHCP and then lack even basic controls to prevent abuse. Very few captured portals on wired networks allow registration by any visitor, nor can they be easily bypassed by just assigning yourself an IP address. In fact, in my 12 years of professional security work I have never seen a network this open. In the spirit of the MIT ethos, the Institute runs this open, unmonitored and unrestricted network on purpose. Their head of network security admitted as much in an interview Aaron’s attorneys and I conducted in December. MIT is aware of the controls they could put in place to prevent what they consider abuse, such as downloading too many PDFs from one website or utilizing too much bandwidth, but they choose not to. MIT also chooses not to prompt users of their wireless network with terms of use or a definition of abusive practices. At the time of Aaron’s actions, the JSTOR website allowed an unlimited number of downloads by anybody on MIT’s 18.x Class-A network. The JSTOR application lacked even the most basic controls to prevent what they might consider abusive behavior, such as CAPTCHAs triggered on multiple downloads, requiring accounts for bulk downloads, or even the ability to pop a box and warn a repeat downloader. Aaron did not “hack” the JSTOR website for all reasonable definitions of “hack”. Aaron wrote a handful of basic python scripts that first discovered the URLs of journal articles and then used curl to request them. Aaron did not use parameter tampering, break a CAPTCHA, or do anything more complicated than call a basic command line tool that downloads a file in the same manner as right-clicking and choosing “Save As” from your favorite browser. Aaron did nothing to cover his tracks or hide his activity, as evidenced by his very verbose .bash_history, his uncleared browser history and lack of any encryption of the laptop he used to download these files. Changing one’s MAC address (which the government inaccurately identified as equivalent to a car’s VIN number) or putting a mailinator email address into a captured portal are not crimes. If they were, you could arrest half of the people who have ever used airport wifi. The government provided no evidence that these downloads caused a negative effect on JSTOR or MIT, except due to silly overreactions such as turning off all of MIT’s JSTOR access due to downloads from a pretty easily identified user agent. I cannot speak as to the criminal implications of accessing an unlocked closet on an open campus, one which was also used to store personal effects by a homeless man. I would note that trespassing charges were dropped against Aaron and were not part of the Federal case. In short, Aaron Swartz was not the super hacker breathlessly described in the Government’s indictment and forensic reports, and his actions did not pose a real danger to JSTOR, MIT or the public. He was an intelligent young man who found a loophole that would allow him to download a lot of documents quickly. This loophole was created intentionally by MIT and JSTOR, and was codified contractually in the piles of paperwork turned over during discovery. Read the full report http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/ [...] So do I read it something like this: While walking on the street, I found an unlocked door to a bar and walked in, grabbed
Re: [PLUG] Mailing list issues - Quick vote
A: +1. Open as in OpenBSD, and not Linux. -ag -- pl. excuse brevity and possible typos, sent from a tiny device. On Jan 8, 2013, at 4:44 PM, Kaustubh Gadkari kaustubh.gadk...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Thin Rhino trml...@gmail.com wrote: The issue is been dragged on for ages and I also see a lot of confusion on what is expected. A quick vote should help. A: Open up the list completely, no moderation B: Remove restrictive moderation, keep basic moderation in place C: Let it be as it is, no change Please vote: A: +1 or B: +1 or C +1 A:+1. If this means more spam, so be it. -- Kaustubh Gadkari ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] Creator of RSS passes away
On Jan 15, 2013, at 6:37 AM, Shridhar Daithankar ghodech...@ghodechhap.net wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12:40:15 AM Sudhanwa Jogalekar wrote: On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Mayuresh mayur...@acm.org wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activis t-dies-at-26.html RIP Aaron Swartz. Sad to know that he committed suicide at such young age. Looks like social activists are not so safe anywhere in the world. http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ [...] Thanks for this article - from various reading I had the same opinion. I think social activists should as well stop playing Robin Hood... They do more harm to the open software movement than good by such antics! -ag ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] mailing list issues
On Jan 4, 2013, at 5:56 AM, jayant ogale jaog...@yahoo.co.in wrote: hi, as i have already said, this is an issue of swatantra and swairachar. one has to draw a line between, and the moderater does the same. he/she is like a head of the joint family [probably a very big joint family]. every family member has a right to put is opinion, debate on it politely, but the ultimate decision is of the family head. asking for freedom without any strings [or in your language ,openness] leads to a keos. if the women ask for the unlimited freedom of dressing, movement etc. the men will ask their freedom for harrasment [you know ... If ultimate decision is of the family head, then why debate it in the first place? Age comes alone sometimes, contrary to the popular Indian belief/bundle of age with wisdom. ;-) Give me one example of a successful mailing list that is as restrictive as PLUG. PLUG never kept up with the times nor technology. So in this case (and going by your argument), the decision of the head of family was grossly wrong. And when it is just a matter of quickly deciding this way or that, we are debating on the how's and whys. So much for freedom and openness. There are only two outcomes: 1. Change, so that mails can quickly get in and out 2. Do not change, status quo. It's as simple as that. But I am yet to hear from the owners about the option they select. Or are they still waiting for a vote and a majority and the probably overrule because they are head of family? Not amused with this stupidity - a simple decision taking ages and huge bandwidth and time and yet nothing decided. -ag ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
Re: [PLUG] Mailing list issues
A locked down list is next to useless, and that is what plug is for me now. Probably one reason why plug meets never garner more support. No question is stupid and when someone moves over to Linux, he/she has many many questions. If plug is not designed to answer newbie questions, there is no charter that says so. Keeping secret the id of mods is the most stupid thing I have heard, besides Linux! ;-) It is never too late to make changes, if necessary. It would take less time to make changes than write a history of how things came to be. -ag ___ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
