Re: [Trisquel-users] non-free sw on websites
Obviously the worst thing about proprietary JavaScript is that it's proprietary. You don't have the 4 freedoms. Besides that JavaScript can be used for snooping various things, some listed at https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Also, the JavaScript sandboxes on many applications are not too good and there are quite a few exploits that take advantage of JS. E.g. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/
Re: [Trisquel-users] non-free sw on websites
I posted my IMO on harmful effects of non-free JavaScript here: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/harmful-effects-non-free-javascript tl;dr: tricking users, unnecessarily tracking of user actions on pages, obfuscation or primitive digital restrictions management (hard to tell, not sure what reCAPTCHA and YouTube use now). Andrew
[Trisquel-users] Trisquel Asia Mirror : in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not responding/working ?
I'm living in India and using mirror in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ since I installed Trisquel 7.0 LTS. But for a week; This mirror is not answering. I can't : Neither sudo apt-get update Nor sudo apt-get install [pkg] I've also checked by trying to download package(s) manually from http://packages.trisquel.info and selecting mirror in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ which is not responding. If there will be no response, then I've to switch to another mirror in Software Updates (Currently I am downloading required debs from http://packages.trisquel.info by means of another mirror. Hence Why in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not active (since about week)? Is it dead?
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
Maybe release the source code? What you're trying to do is nice, but it does seem strange to me. If you're trying to make a fully free system, it would be logical for you to develop and share it as free software. But you say that you only provide a non-functional binary .iso without the source code and sell a DVD with working one you ask people not to share and distribute. You may have a vision of your final product being free software, but so far, what you do seems to go against the four freedoms, rather than support them. If I got my facts wrong, please correct me. If not, then yes, I am suspicious of you and LibertyBSD.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel Asia Mirror : in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not responding/working ?
Hence Why in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not active (since about week)? Is it dead? Yes, I think it must have died recently because I only started having issues a few weeks ago (for some reason the installer must have defaulted to India). You should change to one of the archives listed on the wiki: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/packages-repository (I'll have to update that page some time if someone doesn't beat me; too tired at the moment.) Andrew
[Trisquel-users] Is packages.trisquel.info is down/dead?
Recently I observed (for two days) that I can't open http://packages.trisquel.info/ also checked from external sites (to see that http://packages.trisquel.info/ is not down for me or really down) which also results that http://packages.trisquel.info/ is down/dead. Then Why http://packages.trisquel.info/ is not active? When it will be available again? What to do about searching Trisquel Package Database?!
Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel Asia Mirror : in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not responding/working ?
OK. I replaced in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ with http://mirror.fsf.org/trisquel (in /etc/apt/sources.list) and now All working fine. BTW https://trisquel.info/en/forum/packagestrisquelinfo-downdead
Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel Asia Mirror : in.archive.trisquel.info/trisquel/ is not responding/working ?
It is hosted by http://kmeacollege.ac.in/ some of their services have been down for a while
Re: [Trisquel-users] Is packages.trisquel.info is down/dead?
You can useapt-cache search QUERYfor searching the descriptions of packages andapt-cache search -n QUERY for searching package names.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Is packages.trisquel.info is down/dead?
The development server is being migrated to a new machine, service will be restored soon.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Is packages.trisquel.info is down/dead?
Personally, I've been pretty much off the air since 12/25, however, at that time the 'backend' of the new build system was undergoing tests. That is the part which delivers signed binaries of Trisquelized packages to the repo. There is also a bug against packages.trisquel.info for it not knowing which packages Trisquel is delivering (rather than other upstream flavours of the same package). Final development / fixing either or both of these could result in a p.t.i outage. The clue that this might be the case is as you can see by absence [1] Aklis, the Trisquel BOFH, has been working on some non-GitLab task for four days. Either that or he's sleeping off the accumulated sleep debt from December's sprint, but that seems unlikely. [1] https://devel.trisquel.info/u/aklis
Re: [Trisquel-users] X60 Temps
I bought myself a dinky TV dinner tray to put my Libreboot X60s on for Christmas. Since then the ventilation holes at the bottom have been left in the clear I haven't had an overheat. I'm not running thinkfan, but am running last stable Libreboot rather than any from the current beta series.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
As much as I would love to release the source code early, if I did, there would be nothing to sell! Also, it wouldn't add much additional proof of the software's existence. The FSF supports selling free software - the GPL was designed with this in mind: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It's a lot like crowdfunding - except when you use Kickstarter, there's always the chance that the project might fail. With LibertyBSD, you can be certain that the product you are paying for actually exists.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
Read the article correctly The article says selling free software and The free software must possess the four freedoms You violated the four freedoms you say that you only provide a non-functional binary .iso without the source code and sell a DVD with working one you ask people not to share and distribute. the software until the fundraiser is over (or two months after the purchase date, if the fundraiser is unsuccessful)
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
The people who receive the software have the freedom to distribute it. All I am doing, is requesting on a human level that they wait a bit before doing so. They can disregard my request if they want to. I didn't want to distribute the cd56.iso without source, but many people were suspicious that LibertyBSD did not actually exist. I had to provide some form of proof.
Re: [Trisquel-users] non-free sw on websites
I think of it this way, Facebook and I presume Google track users when they're logged out and not even on their sites through all sorts of code that we can't see or opt out of. http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-we-do-track-logged-out-users-but-trust-us/#!
Re: [Trisquel-users] trisquel support for 2 video cards and 3 monitors
i have no experiance with multiple monitors but i do know that very few modern video cards work well with free software you can get a good one that will work with trisquel from thinkpenguin though: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-8400gs-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux-full-low-profile-brackets a topic was posted about video card that work with free software here: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/best-gpu-works-free-software
Re: [Trisquel-users] Text to speech for gnulinux?
Thank you. I recognize some of the links stated in the answers. The quality of espeak and festival voices I have installed or tested, is not high enough. I am impressed of the quality of windows voice anna. On the internet there was, and maybe still is, some windows sapi5 voices. Fx english and french voices. Likely not with an legal license. They are all of a high standard. There was at some point an effort to make software, so you could install them on gnulinux. But it stalled. Reverse engineering them to source code, that is usable on gnulinux is not possible? The cepstral voices I know of. I find the english david voice acceptable. Cepstral mentions the cepstral voices in combination with orca. I downloaded voice david and installed it. And got no error messages. But I could not get orca to use voice david. I did not get voice david to make any sound. I am not that skilled, that I can determine if it can be done on ubuntu 14.04. Cepstral does not provide support. Cepstral linux voices are not free or open source software? From time to time gnulinux puzzles me. Fx to my knowledge there is no high quality gnulinux video editor. Still pitivi cannot get their crowdfunding funded fast. Maybe there are reasons that a voice of windows voice anna quality is not a priority for gnulinux. I think I once heard, that people who rely on text to speech voices, prefer voices like the orca voices. And often they heavily speed up the voices. If I want to listen to a book converted to an audio book via text to speech, I want the quality level of windows voice anna. If the money came together, getting natural gnulinux voices should be manageable? I find some of the edinburgh voices acceptable. At some point I wrote edinburgh and asked if I could get or buy their voices. They replied, that they were using underlaying licenses limiting them from turning over the software to anyone. I do not recall asking them who would benefit from their research? Ivona make acceptable voices. They make many languages. The software is not freeware, nor open source. They only make windows versions. My knowledge is, that they use one basic software technology. I guess algorithms is what it is about. To make a voice, they record human beeings speaking thousand and thousand of words and sentences. They output of the computation of the sound files is voice software.
[Trisquel-users] stallman's speech
Really enjoyed this speec the last night - I didn't see it before on minitube so I guess is quite recent.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8mOIAY_Jmw cheers
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
It's hard to do business with unknown people. That's the case here from possible donnors/patrons to Riley and vice-versa. It's much easier if there's a trusted intermediary. Riley Baird: I'm very glad that you're interested in free software. I support commercial development of free software. However, I think that you're misguided in the way you're raising funds for your work. The main problem with publishing a binary-only ISO image is that it doesn't respect the user's rights (The 4 freedoms), in other words, it's proprietary software. Additionally, from what I understand, users can't verify that the system you offer works as intended from the binary ISO image, since it doesn't includes source code or can be installed, it's incomplete, and hence can't be checked. With Linux-libre you can see the scripts that have been used to deblob and check whether any blob remains, which isn't possible with the published LibertyBSD image from what I understand. I would be glad to see that you succeed in commercially contributing to free software, without distributing proprietary software. I propose a means that I think you can use to raise funds for your work more effectively, and reduce the uncertainty that some people interested in LibertyBSD may have of being scammed: Stop distributing the binary ISO image. Further donations would be made to a Bitcoin address overseen by an escrow composed by members that you and the free software community generally trusts[1] while the following process is undergoing: Make a written specification in which you describe at depth what you offer. Here's an incomplete list of questions that the specification should answer, in my opinion: Does LibertyBSD meets the GNU FSDG to the best of your knowledge? If not, on which point is it not compliant?. Bear in mind that there may be recommendations of proprietary software scattered in free programs, did you made an effort to remove them?. what system it's based on (OpenBSD version, patches applied, and additional software included, if any)? What is the difference of features? I see that you already mentioned that it works only on x86-64 in the project page, but an complete list is better. What's the software that was included/removed/modified? For modified software, how many lines were modified[2]? Are all of those changes of your authorship?. Under which license are they released?. This is very important, as it gives interested parties an idea of how much work was done. Was the system rebranded? If so, which packages have been modified for rebranding?, and also include a sample of the artwork. In my proposal, you would make such a specification and publish it for a public comments period in which people may ask whether LibertyBSD does something that you haven't specified, or suggest clarifications of your specification; you would then modify the specification at your sole discretion given this feedback (or chose to ignore all feedback). The point with this is that you have an opportunity to clarify doubts and arrive at a specification satisfactory to you and the possible donnors or patrons. After the comments period, if enough money was sent to the escrow address, you would send the final version of the specification (which would be public) and the complete LibertyBSD (As would be published) to an escrow. If not enough money has been sent, then you have the option to wait until all the money you originally asked for is raised before submitting LibertyBSD to the escrow, or send it anyway to the escrow At your option, you can publish and timestamp a cryptographic hash of the submission *before* sending it to the escrow. This make is less likely that the escrow will cheat, since you can prove that you had the submission before they did. They can't rebrand LibertyBSD and successfully claim that developed it, for instance. After receiving LibertyBSD, the escrow evaluates whether it meets the specification, and if so, releases the money to you, otherwise, if it contains minor problems you'd have a period of time known in advance to fix them (14 days for example). In case you failed to meet the specifications within the allowance period, the escrow returns the money to donors, or sends it to another end, chosen in advance (for instance, the Free Software Foundation). Of course, the escrow must be a non-empty set of people who free software supporters generally trust, you trust, would be willing to offer his work as escrow and know enough about OpenBSD to perform this evaluation. The Bitcoin pay-to-script can be used to make sure that a minority of the members of the escrow can't cripple the process by requiring the signature of more than half the escrow members to act on the money. I think that it may be possible to additionally make the Bitcoin address correspond to an script that allows the received money
Re: [Trisquel-users] non-free sw on websites
Thanks for the great essay- I'm now convinced that I should keep LibreJS enabled.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
orthogonal released the cd56.iso- I did a quick comparison of OpenBSD's ISO and LibertyBSD's ISO: LibertyBSD: 8.0 MB in size OpenBSD: 8.8 MB in size That's all the comparison that's possible without the source code.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
It seems most likely that the blobs are the only things which would be large enough to account for this much of a difference in size. Since you're already buying a CD, I'll email you a link to the source tarballs now, if you'd like to do any more comparison. (They're several hundred megabytes, though.)
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
Thank you so much for going to all of this work to make this proposal. This is definitely something which I would like to do. *I've removed the cd56.iso from the website. If anyone is looking for it, and still wants it, feel free to ask. *Would the FSF be willing to act as an escrow? I can't think of an organisation more trusted within the free software community. *As for confirming that no blobs are in the system, a set of scripts is not required because OpenBSD has a strict policy against non-free software [1], making an exception for microcode, which they do not view as software. All of the microcode is stored in src/sys/dev/microcode (or /etc/firmware on the cd56.iso), so it is trivial to confirm that no binary-only firmware has been missed. *I will be happy to provide a specification answering the questions that you asked, but creating this will take a little time. I'll post when it's done. *I'm fine with the times that you mentioned - 30 days for the public comment period, and 14 days for the allowance period. The public comment period would start after the release of the draft specification. *In the case that I do not make the required modifications (if any) within the allowance period, then I would strongly recommend that the money be returned to the donors, instead of to the FSF. This way, it is harder for the FSF (if it is the escrow) to be accused of conspiracy. *I don't see any harm in continuing to accept donations during the public comments period, even if the escrow service wouldn't start until the end of it (which, coincidentally, would seem to be the end of the FSF's campaign). I might be missing something extremely obvious, though, so tell me if I am. :) If there is anything else that should be added such that there can be more trust in this transaction, then I will most likely be happy to implement it. [1] http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
You can't rely entirely on OpenBSD's policy. Note this passage: It follows however, that OpenBSD cannot include material which includes copyrights which are more restrictive than the Berkeley copyright, or must relegate this material to a secondary status, i.e. OpenBSD as a whole is freely redistributable, but some optional components may not be. In other words, software which doesn't follow their policy is something they avoid, but not strictly in the case of optional components. In fact, any copylefted program goes against this policy, and yet OpenBSD includes some copylefted programs even in its base installation, [f]or historical reasons. So you can't entirely rely on the OpenBSD team to keep all proprietary software out of the system. On a side note, I'm also wary of giving support to the OpenBSD team, or any BSD team, simply because of their opposition to copyleft and intention to replace all useful copylefted programs with pushover-licensed programs, to be honest. I feel like giving money to them funds development of software that threatens our bargaining power with proprietary software developers, like LLVM, and in effect hurts our movement more than it helps it. Though to be fair, I also have no interest on a technical level in a BSD system, so I'm not giving money towards this anyway.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
Okay, good point about the policy. As far as I can tell, there is no more non-free software in OpenBSD (other than the firmware blobs). If any more is found, I'll be sure to remove it. I don't think that it's worth refusing to help OpenBSD just because of their license choice. After all - we wouldn't have had ath9k without them, and if that were the case, there'd be no fully free wifi at all.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibertyBSD - OpenBSD minus the blobs
I've just heard that some people are unable to donate/buy CDs because they don't have a Bitcoin wallet, so I've included instructions on how to pay using Paypal or credit card: http://www.libertybsd.net/#nobitcoin I've also contacted the FSF to ask about escrow, so hopefully that will work. If not, is there any trusted member of the community that would like to volunteer?
