[Trisquel-users] Copyright concerns on multimedia sharing sites, software freedom, and copyright policy concerns
mr.j.spam...@gmail.com wrote: says Soon.to.be.Free - without a hint of irony - how noble you are to raise the ethical concerns of executing a little javascript that you do not have a license for - while you download a copyrighted music video ripping off your favorite band - sorry, i am not impressed :( Quite a lot is said there which needs and deserves some unpacking. While fully recognizing you did not use the word "theft" nor did you conflate theft with copyright infringement, it's worth noting that laws don't define ethics. I think https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft says it well: Unauthorized copying is forbidden by copyright law in many circumstances (not all!), but being forbidden doesn't make it wrong. In general, laws don't define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don't fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change. Just because copyright is involved in both situations (the YouTube Javascript program code and possibly the work hosted on YouTube) that does not mean we need to draw the same conclusions about them because their licenses don't have the same effect on us, and they could be of completely different kinds of works (the Javascript code is functional, but the video might be someone expressing their political views). We should question whether we want copyright at all (in the US, at least, copyright law is constitutionally allowed not constitutionally required), and what power(s) and what we want copyright law to say. People discover they can use computers to share and remix copyrighted works. We find that people want to use computers to do these things. This means it is foolish to trade away our natural right to copy anything to satisfy the power desires of a few (greedy copyright holders). Richard Stallman talks about this at some length in his earlier talks about "Copyright vs. Community". You can find a copy of this and many other talks online at https://audio-video.gnu.org/ in formats that favor free software. https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/2016-04-11--rms--copyright-vs-community--athens.ogv is one such recording. In that recording, he talks about this topic at about 1 hour into the talk, but the whole talk is worth seeing and hearing. Also, copyrighted works are not all licensed to forbid copying, sharing, or building upon. Some works hosted on multimedia sharing sites are licensed to share. For all we know, someone's favorite band licenses their works to share. Finally, regarding "executing a little javascript that you do not have a license for": that's not the issue here. YouTube is giving you a copy of the Javascript with a clear expectation for you to run that code in order to use their service, so that's license enough to read that software but insufficient to call that software free software. The question concerns what rights you have under the relevant license: as with any other software, if you lack the freedoms of free software in that program (and the program is of copyrightable length) that program is non-free software.
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
You do have a fair point. Although my views align with SuperTramp's, I can understand how those who are less inclined to completely trample over copyright restrictions may not see that statement in such a positive light. However, it seems questionable that the execution of JavaScript is *with* the author's consent and the downloading of the videos *without*. In regards to the JavaScript, it is stated in YouTube's TOS that "You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate." (from https://trisquel.info/en/forum/you-cannot-watch-youtube-libre-software-computer#comment-113304). This would seem to imply non-consent to use of the 'JavaScript engine' in YouTube-DL for the purpose of downloading videos- potentially there would be no objections to running the JavaScript for other purposes, but that is beside the point. For downloading of videos, there is of course non-consent in some sense, highlighted in the TOS quote above. On the other hand, though, official music videos have been posted online, for free, in a public space under the auspices of the publishers themselves (or at least with their implicit consent). This to me suggests permission, or even encouragement, from the copyright holders to download a copy and have a look. They might not want you holding a copy on your hard drive, or using a third-party interface to YouTube, but that's a separate issue- the former can be administered at will with the delete key, and the latter is the only way to access *any* YouTube video without running 10 tonnes of full-strength JS.
Re: [Trisquel-users] What's wrong with OpenMailBox?
It seems more complex than I thought. The config makes it even less likely to be used by friends/family. And you're right again, I didn't think about the hardware. One more downside. My perspective is always the random normal user who's privacy conscious. To me it would be the rare case of "I don't have my computer with me, but I have to check my emails". Considering all that, the Tails method isn't vital. Nonetheless, if more people I know are willing to use GPG for emails, I'd go along with it.
Re: [Trisquel-users] What's wrong with OpenMailBox?
If you burn the tails ISO to read-only media, then yes you'll have to configure it each time. It is also possible to simply use the command line. You could add your private key to the ISO before burning it, but I wouldn't do that. I wonder how many people actually use untrusted computers in this manner. If you're serious enough to use Tails, wouldn't you inspect the hardware at least. It all comes down to your threat model.
Re: [Trisquel-users] What's wrong with OpenMailBox?
I see, so for personal machines (including a Replicant phone, though there's no guarantee the private key can't be accessed from the modem), problem solved. So Thunderbird + Enigmail on Tails would need some config on each boot? Too bad, as if it wasn't annoying enough to reboot from a thumbdrive. About the "targeted" argument: Sure but that's socially acceptable encryption (not the kind of encryption that would attract attention, even though perfectly legal and reasonable). In a way, all this is meaningless https://www.xkcd.com/538/ But to me, the point is simply to cover as much leaks as possible/reasonable, to as many unwanted third-party readers possible/reasonable. Which should be normal use. I mean if people prevent their emails to be accessed by other people, it makes sense that the mail provider (and more commercial/governmental entities) should get the same treatment, legally. Well, actually I still wonder why I put so much effort into all this. I guess I consider it forbidding legal but abusive behavior. Legally. Or at least making it harder to put in practice. So, their argument that it might increase exposure has some truth, which is why I have a hard time answering that. OTOH, which is better: having all my data on diplay but not being on the radar (in theory), or possibly standing out a bit more, but having very little of my data on display? Frankly, I don't like option n°1.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Random disconnects
Magic Banana is right, I shouldn't have skipped over the timestamp. Check on your router when your DHCP lease is up then see if the computer looses connection around that time.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Random disconnects
I recently have regular Wi-Fi disconnections. Turns out removing the X200 laptop from it's base helped, and probably getting closer to the source helped just as much. I'll have to test again soon, but it never happened before.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Smart Phone Recommendations, Please
I don't know about that, and frankly speaking, I can't see the big effort in buying old s2 phones, putting replicant on it and selling it for doubled price. Why this is supposed to be "so hard" is something i cannot understand. If you really don't dare to flash the phone yourself, then ask a somewhat technically skilled friend. I'm pretty sure that he can flash it for you in half an hour, or let's say an hour at most. If technoethical can make money with their offer, then it's good for them - as a business, why should't they make an offer that generates a lot of money if people buy it. That's how the market works, i suppose. And if there are rich people who look for a quick and convenient way to get a freed phone, then why not take this offer. On the other hand, I don't want poor people to take the offer just because they think flashing replicant is something incredibly complicated or time consuming. That's all I wanted to clarify: it's a costy service and there are alternatives. If you still want to have something convenient, then you can take it - or a similiar offer by any other company.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Random disconnects
No, I guess I just included that line because it was the only thing happened between login and the disconnect. I checked the log again and it seems to occur every hour (17 minutes and 1 second): Jul 8 03:17:01 desktop1 CRON[2390]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jul 8 04:17:01 desktop1 CRON[2773]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jul 8 05:17:01 desktop1 CRON[2823]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) (and so on)
Re: [Trisquel-users] Smart Phone Recommendations, Please
check out https://www.wileyfox.com/ there fairly cheap, but I think they run cyanogenmod ? you'd have to "libre" it a bit I suppose... https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
bill mate, I did not for it seems obvious to me, I mean, rejecting non-free software has nothing to do with copyrighted music, or whatever non-free data for that matter. I don't like my youtube-dl to download or execute any kind of non-free software but I am very much ok with downloading guns n roses' discography. One thing has nothing to do with the other. There, I tried again. It was not my intention to be pretentious, rather I wanted to point out the absurdity of your previous comment. And I even had a point, strange as it may seem.
[Trisquel-users] Re : Random disconnects
Since the disconnection happened more than seven minutes after the execution of the tasks executed every hour, I do not think they have anything to do with the disconnection.
Re: [Trisquel-users] vmlinuz not found error
Is the file vmlinuz present in your root folder? If so, try this part again: https://libreboot.org/docs/gnulinux/encrypted_trisquel.html#booting-your-system.
Re: [Trisquel-users] What's wrong with OpenMailBox?
With IMAP, it is possible to have encrypted e-mail available on multiple devices as long as you copy you're private key to them. So, if you have a desktop at home and a laptop both could be configured to read your e-mail. For something like Tails, an encrypted flash drive with your private key would be necessary. This would require some configuration on each boot. Using Thunderbird with the Enigmail plug-in is probably the easiest way to achieve this. One could use the terminal to encrypt and then attach the result to the e-mail. The people that make that argument don't realize how much encryption they habitually use. I doubt that encrypting e-mail increases your exposure, the alphabet soups still know who is talking to whom. If your friend does something stupid today, they'll pay you a visit tomorrow.
Re: [Trisquel-users] PDF problems: Any way to evade installation of Adobe Reader? Urgent.
That seems like a start! Thanks for sending the feedback. Isn't Germany in general fairly receptive to Free Software?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Random disconnects
What's in cron.hourly? I just checked on my system and it's empty. Does the connection drop every hour?
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
i only made one statement so saying "once again" is just pretentious - and as you did not bother to educate me as to what exactly is "the point" i allegedly missed, then one can only assume that you did not actually have one https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem care to try again?
Re: [Trisquel-users] non-graphical installer installed kubuntu instead of Trisquel
I agree with banana, explain to us how you did fix it?
[Trisquel-users] Re : non-graphical installer installed kubuntu instead of Trisquel
Please explain how the problem was "fixed": somebody else could profit from your experience.
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
> said without a hint of irony - how noble to be concerned about the ethics of executing a little unlicensed javascript with the consent of it's author - while downloading copyrighted music without the consent of it's author - sorry, if i am not impressed :( Once again you miss the point - I'm impressed, how do you manage to do that?
[Trisquel-users] Re : did you flash libreboot on a thinkpad t400?
It's not that hard to disassemble. Just make sure to remember where the screws were.. You need to fully disassemble it to know if soic8 or 16. If doing it for the first time, you will need approx 2 hours.
Re: [Trisquel-users] did you flash libreboot on a thinkpad t400?
I intent to purchase an t400 from Ministry of Freedom next year. You already have one, or are you researching in order to make up your mind about it?
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
Thank you for linking that! Also, it would definitely be a good idea to consolidate discussion. I'll sign up right now (I should have earlier, but... better late than never, perhaps).
Re: [Trisquel-users] A Liberated Version of Youtube-DL is Almost Here!
Thanks for the link- looks good! As a side note, it may be worth mentioning that avideo will automatically overwrite youtube-dl, so that any software which uses youtube-dl should (minus error messages) automatically be compatible. That said, it doesn't hurt to check- and it would definitely be good to point the terminal-averse to a GUI, so they too can be free.
