1 (edited by throgh 2019-11-15 00:03:05)

Topic: Sharing information: About being believable!

Hello together,

it mocks me up when locking after free software these days. Not that we have problems in a whole with being left over with the phrase "open-source" - which is in fact a vague and just wrong description. There are also enough people and participants out there thinking they just can install som operating-system being free from most known proprietary packages and software, after that they are done with everything else.

No? Okay, you could use invidio.us for example. But where is the difference? Just another webinterface for video and audio hosted on centralized servers at Google. Yes, it is also one point about personal data like concurrent connection data is not officially given away and invidio.us is the main contact for Google, but it is clear that the mentioned company is just locking up some servers hosting the software and they won't stop when this becomes just too big or they even lock the concurrent API. And what about the next step to be taken if this happens? No further videos delivered. That's just the starting point because what about people even doing videos about GNU/Linux and other parts of free software, uploading this to centralized, proprietary services? What about this all-time comparisons? No, Gimp is NOT Photoshop and Audacity is NOT Wavelab. Those free, libre applications have their own standing, so they have to be handled like this and not with this on-going comparisons again and again.

If "we" really want to be believable we should stop sharing and caring content wide throughout centralized, proprietary services. Thinking further because what about such nice projects like LibreTube? What about others? And yes, we have also to think about "social services": Are those really "social" or is it again some escalation without real talking? I would like to call those more than "anti-social" and I'm also referring to Diaspora, Mastodon and others. Everybody is free to choose, of course. But when do we really start being "believable", not just talking about finding access to furthermore the same proprietary content and being afterwards more dependent than before? Some pictures with mentioned comparisons also DO NOT help!

Being believable means therefore being straight up and being friendly in combination with support. With all the examples above we should not wonder why some free projects standing up for "open, free culture" take more and more dependencies from outside. For example the nice project Blender integrating an unfree interface (CUDA) and has to be changed afterwards being therefore no risk for privacy and freedom. The main problem is the mix with "open-source", this pragmatic view: Yeah, using some distribution being about freedom and privacy, but also focussed on proprietary services with content bound to copyrights and no perspective for copyleft or permissive licensing. Let us make a difference for a better future including all residents of our nice, blue planet - and I know this is some kind of utopian view, but just also some idealistic view for the better! smile

Being believable also means information: So what do you think about making a collection of your used free, libre applications and services being open for everyone as demonstration that this is no illusion? You have found a nice application for the commandline helping? An interesting project? Get it here, perhaps we could also help Hyperbola itself - just to mention PKGBUILD-files for interesting toolsets and libraries from the member koszko: https://libregit.org/koszko/PKGBUILDs
Perhaps you've mentioned this, before but I think this needs to being mentioned straight up again. Oh and yes: Github should be included as proprietary service as projects like ScummVM use it being dependent from Microsoft itself - same problem as mentioned above with invidio.us and Google. Perhaps this is not their main repository? But that's just my perspective, open for discussion.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

2 (edited by throgh 2019-12-01 23:27:55)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Well, I think it would interesting to list more studies and problems for further discussion regarding being believable. What about flatpak as a concrete actual example? The idea itself sounds nice but a further look onto the website Flathub shows exactly the opposite. Proprietary applications like Spotify, Steam and Skype are available besides free, libre projects. Where should this readlly help? And what about the idea of Rob McQueen (Board member of GNOME) as he noted the following:

We're all motivated by the same thing. We're all lovers of the free desktop." Specifically, for apps, "We both agree that this is a bottleneck in getting people to engage with the Linux desktop. It made perfect sense to look for something bigger than our desktop to pull together on the Linux desktop. Alex Pol, KDE's president, agreed. "We're making something that will get bigger over time, which will let people do what they want to do with a desktop. (source)

Sounds not good at all regarding free soft- and hardware? Remember: We are talking really here not about the pragmatic "Open-Source". But as we are already talking about Gnome: What about the so-called supporting organizations? Well, lovely Google is to be found there and don't get me wrong: I'm not starting here another "Google is the evil and enemy at the gates!"-argumentation. It is more about the literally wrong direction and I'm not the one deciding this because it is all about the wording itself: "Free as in freedom" includes also responsibility and the will looking after mistakes and discussing about them. The mass seems to cryout for easy integration, no difference between free and proprietary software and all at once in a really wild mixup. How do we think this is ending? My assumption: It'll break Linux from the ground and making it unusable when talking about freedom and privacy, the right to study and learn at anytime and the right to fork and modify everywhere and everything.

How do I come to this assumption? Even today projects like systemd are done by developers paid from companies and they have much more time as others doing this in their free time. So those developers paid for have much more time building up a full bloated context and that's a major reason having systemd including more parts - no, this won't stop as the team came up with homed. When talking about the KISS-principle I have to say even now when talking a gobal Linux-community: We are really far away from that, people. Galaxies between the concrete imagination of Keep it simple and straightforward (you can choose also other wordings) as people for doing development and documentation have different amount of time and this is the big breaking-point. In the end companies and commercial interests have even an easy going with all of this and the false image for "Linux" being safe, secure and simple rising up more and more.

Don't misunderstand me: GNU/Linux (as using now the GNU within) can be really simple, fast and safe. But not with all the other things back in. Not with all this false promises as more and more centralization is ongoing right now as I write those words here. Are there alternatives for Flathub? No, not really. And what about the FSF for example having a concrete argument against those complex things like systemd of doing a fork for flatpak? As long as it is "free as in freedom" there is no problem, so "we" can take it? Erm, okay? And what about being independent? Raising a freedom of choice? That's all part of being believable, coming not with false promises of being "easy to handle" and stopping that pragmatism, which even overcomes the clearest principle. The reasoning? Because people even argument that they have a freedom to choose using proprietray applications. Yes, they can do so, but this is not about tolerance as this won't stop there and more dependencies from those big, bloated projects (systemd) will come up while distributions like Hyperbola and others have more work to remove this or freeze the current version used - including therefore backporting security fixes in one way or another. This cannot be good, this is against being believable and shred the trust into pieces when security issues won't fix one day because the dependencies stands in the way. So we should question ourselves about having the newset , pragmatic choice while in the long run there can emerge real chances. Even the phrase "X is an alternative to Y" is questionable  as people always tend to think in comparisons. GNU is not about that from my point of view and we will ruin it doing just in comparisons!

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

3

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

Well, I think it would interesting to list more studies and problems for further discussion regarding being believable. What about flatpak as a concrete actual example? The idea itself sounds nice but a further look onto the website Flathub shows exactly the opposite. Proprietary applications like Spotify, Steam and Skype are available besides free, libre projects. Where should this readlly help? And what about the idea of Rob McQueen (Board member of GNOME) as he noted the following:

We're all motivated by the same thing. We're all lovers of the free desktop." Specifically, for apps, "We both agree that this is a bottleneck in getting people to engage with the Linux desktop. It made perfect sense to look for something bigger than our desktop to pull together on the Linux desktop. Alex Pol, KDE's president, agreed. "We're making something that will get bigger over time, which will let people do what they want to do with a desktop. (source)

Sounds not good at all regarding free soft- and hardware? Remember: We are talking really here not about the pragmatic "Open-Source". But as we are already talking about Gnome: What about the so-called supporting organizations? Well, lovely Google is to be found there and don't get me wrong: I'm not starting here another "Google is the evil and enemy at the gates!"-argumentation. It is more about the literally wrong direction and I'm not the one deciding this because it is all about the wording itself: "Free as in freedom" includes also responsibility and the will looking after mistakes and discussing about them. The mass seems to cryout for easy integration, no difference between free and proprietary software and all at once in a really wild mixup. How do we think this is ending? My assumption: It'll break Linux from the ground and making it unusable when talking about freedom and privacy, the right to study and learn at anytime and the right to fork and modify everywhere and everything.

How do I come to this assumption? Even today projects like systemd are done by developers paid from companies and they have much more time as others doing this in their free time. So those developers paid for have much more time building up a full bloated context and that's a major reason having systemd including more parts - no, this won't stop as the team came up with homed. When talking about the KISS-principle I have to say even now when talking a gobal Linux-community: We are really far away from that, people. Galaxies between the concrete imagination of Keep it simple and straightforward (you can choose also other wordings) as people for doing development and documentation have different amount of time and this is the big breaking-point. In the end companies and commercial interests have even an easy going with all of this and the false image for "Linux" being safe, secure and simple rising up more and more.

Don't misunderstand me: GNU/Linux (as using now the GNU within) can be really simple, fast and safe. But not with all the other things back in. Not with all this false promises as more and more centralization is ongoing right now as I write those words here. Are there alternatives for Flathub? No, not really. And what about the FSF for example having a concrete argument against those complex things like systemd of doing a fork for flatpak? As long as it is "free as in freedom" there is no problem, so "we" can take it? Erm, okay? And what about being independent? Raising a freedom of choice? That's all part of being believable, coming not with false promises of being "easy to handle" and stopping that pragmatism, which even overcomes the clearest principle. The reasoning? Because people even argument that they have a freedom to choose using proprietray applications. Yes, they can do so, but this is not about tolerance as this won't stop there and more dependencies from those big, bloated projects (systemd) will come up while distributions like Hyperbola and others have more work to remove this or freeze the current version used - including therefore backporting security fixes in one way or another. This cannot be good, this is against being believable and shred the trust into pieces when security issues won't fix one day because the dependencies stands in the way. So we should question ourselves about having the newset , pragmatic choice while in the long run there can emerge real chances. Even the phrase "X is an alternative to Y" is questionable  as people always tend to think in comparisons. GNU is not about that from my point of view and we will ruin it doing just in comparisons!

Yeah, I agree with you completely, that is why we need a libre BSD I believe. I look forward to that in the future. smile

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

4

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

zapper wrote:

Yeah, I agree with you completely, that is why we need a libre BSD I believe. I look forward to that in the future. smile

Yeah, me too. But we have already many building sites when talking about free, libre software. This pragmatic mentality coming up with "open-source" caused mischief until today as we already need principles not bound to persons and more for a globalized understatement at all. That's really big words I'm using here, I know. But better to get on and start with it, being believable! cool

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

5

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Being believable and the FSF is one good example for the major point: The patrons on the website show up the company Red Hat which was bought by IBM. So why taking donations from them, while systemd and more is exclusive making choices impossible at all? Of course there are choices: Funding projects like GNU shepherd and extending them, funding more projects so systemd is just really getting a bad choice for a further defunct system-architecture, bloated software at all. Taking the money means making something of it, even a fork of systemd. But nothing happened until today and only because systemd got a free, copyleft license doesn't make this mess of software better.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

6

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

Being believable and the FSF is one good example for the major point: The patrons on the website show up the company Red Hat which was bought by IBM. So why taking donations from them, while systemd and more is exclusive making choices impossible at all? Of course there are choices: Funding projects like GNU shepherd and extending them, funding more projects so systemd is just really getting a bad choice for a further defunct system-architecture, bloated software at all. Taking the money means making something of it, even a fork of systemd. But nothing happened until today and only because systemd got a free, copyleft license doesn't make this mess of software better.

Actually, having a copyleft license makes it marginally better.  But yeah, it still is a terrible bit of software.

Personally I think the FSF needs to realize even free software licenses can be used for restricting freedom. Case in point, systemd, dbus, networkmanager, pulseaudio, etc...

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

7

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

I don't think the FSF even recognize those major issues: If I cannot swap out components (systemd is nothing more than this) of an operating-system based on free software this system is indeed systemd, locked in. And it is not about preferences or being intolerant as some defenders of systemd always pronounce: systemd itself is not about choices and therefore also not about being believable. It is about being just usable without any further alternative and therefore breaking freedom of users, their freedom of choice and many distributions adapted this bloated software, many projects relies on installed packages - as to note again Gnome does.

Either the FSF speaks out against this corporate sellout or principles will be more and more dissolving, which is not acceptable.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

8 (edited by throgh 2019-12-11 17:27:59)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

A long story in short: Using proprietary services like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest does only the opposite of distributing freedom and privacy

In fact many participants and projects make usage of those services, some even use them as the only way for further news. This doesn't help spreading freedom and tells just all users and developers the opposite: Making use of those services is in some way "okay". Far more worse Twitter has just some standing and I don't get it: Why using this echochamber full with transported hatred and shortened facts or even worse lies? Calling this "social media" is a very bad joke and just for reaching the majority the risks are far more higher than any profit could be as people starting to believe they don't have to change anything. And transporting some kind of news back into those anti-social media is the same: Nothing is going to change, if we as community (meaning "free software" in general) stay this kind of pragmatic! Those corporate websites and services just make use of all data they can get and the community itself is getting fractured more than ever. Twitter is being helpful? Stop joking. And services like Diaspora or Mastodon are not better, just because they use a copyleft license. They are even far more worse as some participants and demagogues use them for proclaiming their "freedom of speech". Well, better call this "refusal for criticism" as every freedom of speech just has to stop when others are insulted, harassed and their rights and dignity should be removed.

Don't get it and I will never get this: Stop this and start being believable, meaning also being inclusive and not exclusive! Everything else is a waste of time in best cases and could become a big problem about time as facts are reduced to just 280 signs and "open-source" will become the same as "free software". Full of trouble with those simplifications and I have not even mentioned the devastating effects for democracies when fascists take over - way too much of those mentalities are in there. roll

A democracy built on top of clear principles, based on respect and inclusion for every peaceful living and being, discussing clear problems with the will to solve them and not making some smear campaign out of them, open for criticism and against capitalism in general as it is the base for many problems. Don't giving up and keep argumenting as we should never handing out our individual freedom and privacy to some companies. As humans have recognized the scheme of simulating "trust" (and then doing something else) those companies are within failure, as the illusion of some "free markets" is the same - the toxic waste of capitalism as "free software" is a complete opposite model. Whatever smear campaign and argument is possible, will be used and done!

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

9 (edited by throgh 2019-12-12 05:54:13)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

And last but not least the new listing can give a quick overview how dependent the "free software"-community already is. Without anti-social services and proprietary, centralized code-hosting it seems most projects and developers just don't even recognize the dependencies. There are many reasons for this failure, but foremost I think this comes up with the concurrent pragmatic touch. The message is more important than everything else and the four freedoms are just nothing more than a bad joke for some participants, some kind of loveless guideline getting some fame for individuals and groups on the "marketplace of ideas" - whereever this in universe should be.

Sweet bitterness as neoliberal views and pragmatism shows up their ugly faces and we are just at the beginning as there is more to come from my point of view - could be wrong and I hope I'm just wrong with this conclusion as even free, libre games like to be on proprietary service like Steam (Megaglest for example)! sad

The reality is far more worse as Linux in general is going to die a very slow and painful death, if this doesn't stop and people stop with competing for fancy features, doing irreversible damage to principles like the four freedoms. And with more inclusion, more marketing for centralized services everything else is going more down. Yes, the principles of free, libre soft- and hardware are very important, but they were never prepared for neoliberalism. Even denying any kind of ideology - often used as smear argument for technology - won't help: There was, is and will be always ideology within. That's the major point and "we" don't even see the major issues now: Instead argumenting against "Code of Conduct" for example, another false argument from my view. See? There has to be no further exclusion, as neoliberal views are already within and will destroy major parts of freedom and privacy. In the future it is even bad not having some kind of anti-social media account or access to corporate cloud-services. You thought about freedom of choice? Good jokes ahead and I hope this sinister picture I'm drawing here will never occur, those so-called "smartphones" or better computing-devices with phone-capabilities are even more the absolute medium for everything these days. And hey: The FSF has even recognized it, sending messages about Replicant. What should I say more? About being believable doesn't include some kind of proprietary system made free additions and Android is the definition of this. Oh please, dear FSF: Stop this as you don't even see major issues with systemd and speaking against also includes criticism towards "your" sponsor Red Hat! There is nothing bad about making a "free Android", but if you don't even recognize major issues otherwise this can and will become bad as this could convey a real false form of security at all (sidenote: removal of really all problems of Android with a small group of people while there are uncounted participants working on making the system to be adapted even more proprietary?).

But hey: gNewSense has done what this year? Exactly: A roadmap while it is more fancy for a major responsible being on Twitter and writing some further funny messages every day again. Being believable, perhaps I have just another understatement of this phrase? Or indeed it is just this: A cheap phrase and marketing? Hope not. And Debian is doing another vote about systemd, some of proposals even include the same way about what Devuan did back in the days they had done the initial fork. Freedom of choice for the INIT-system? Absolutely yes, as this is one freedom: Modifying the system following the own way and just because sysv was a long candidate being used doesn't make systemd even better as this package cannot be exchanged without major problems and elogind is nothing more than an excuse-option: It is directly in connection with rest of upstream component logind from systemd. We should stop fooling ourselves! wink

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

10 (edited by throgh 2019-12-12 11:07:18)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

But it's just for having more "outreach", the excuse for making an account using  proprietary services and I have heard this so many times. And Twitter announced even yesterday building some small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media and a mass of people cheer up. Exactly why? There are already defined protocols and ideas available: ActivityPub? Diaspora? Zod? Many more.

That's the problem with capitalism and neoliberalism: Only an "authority" is accepted instead of facts and of course a company like Twitter is exactly this. I've mentioned before that the handling of anti-social networks is not good: The reasoning? Because also Diaspora, Mastodon and others also repeat paradigms known from the proprietary services: You like a comment or posting, you share a posting and where is the discussion? Where is the talk, the social interaction? Clicking on some icons to execute further actions is no interaction and not even near being social. In fact it is the opposite: People just hunting for affirmation instead of reflection, getting into closed filterbubbles. No difference between proprietary or libre services therefore. Okay, you can participate in a discussion under a posting and I remember early days at Diaspora where this last for weeks with hundreds of comments under a posting. I've left the network after this changed more and more with the paradigms being copied from people and developers, with examples like Facebook and Google+ in mind. Better to have a high number of votings ("likes") instead of a long discussion! There you have the major problem: The ongoing shortening of information, of discussion and reduction of facts and complexity.

Nevertheless the basic idea of having decentralized systems is "good", using them for (real) "social interaction" also and not new. But it was ignored long enough and the "blockchain" is again some buzzword. Same with the announcement of Twitter. Was not believable before and is the same bad joke. But I think enough participants will rise up in the near future proclaiming again that Twitter is opening and where we would have been "without all those companies and their support" - another smear argument for accepting donations from companies first and afterwards perhaps even more. But hey, you may ask: What could possibly go wrong? Being pragmatic and giving up is better than thinking, eh? The known false arguments and the resulting events are in chronological ordering: First the companies bound people with the illusion of "social interactions", second they sell data given to them, third they recognize it is better to use libre, free software in some ways instead of inventing otherwise and fourth they simulate interest for the greater good of all. Indeed it is for someone's good, but not for society, not for the community and not for the projects the companies are interested in. It's just more of the same: The interest of those companies like Twitter and they won't release any kind of idea or bunch of source, perhaps just some minor fragments as Microsoft did in the past with .net and Mono. Again people cheering up, but for what exactly? Was the complete source-code of Windows released under a copyleft or permissive license? Was DirectX given to the people of the Wine-project for further implementation? All hardware-vendors have been enforced to release their source-code and there won't be a any further discussion about if Windows and its sources would be released? You see: Playing "bullshit-bingo" is big in these days! Perhaps this was the same always for us human beings and we like to play this political nonsense? The companies try to open up, nothing is far more wrong as description as they are locking in with illusions and the "free software"-community has no further arguments against this while following the "open-source"-claims. And we all are not independent: As diabetic for example I have to follow selected companies creating my insulin and possibilities to check my current blood sugar. If those possibilities are not available any longer I have to look after others, but not because I have done this decision on my own. It is because an "authority" - a company - decided this because it was no longer of financial interest and benefit for them!

The reasoning, quite simple as hard: If they decide not to create insulin and possibilities for diabetics any longer - political motivated, financial interests etc. - I'm going to die very soon. And so is the same for others with chronic health conditions. So is the same with information and technologies, on another surface and with another context as free knowledge and information is crucial for a free, libre and open society and colorful culture for all beings! It is easy to choose the nearest exit and not to think about consequences, but they are already here to be seen for everyone willing.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

11 (edited by throgh 2019-12-12 11:53:25)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Okay, the snapcraft in short as the visitor can see on the headline following names:

  • Jet Brains

  • Spotify

  • Google

  • Microsoft

Its the same with flatpak: Proprietary packages and applications distributed besides free, libre applications. A wild mixup and therefore vague in best case, far more worse from my point. The reasoning behind having those distribution listed as problematic. And behind all is who? Of course Canonical. That's also one reason Trisquel lost my trust, because they are not even willing to go a little bit further away from what Canonical is throwing - no other wording for this - in their repositories: The project Trisquel just removes proprietary packages and applications but accepts everything else under the known pragmatism. Only my own reasoning, but that's not the way freedom should go as the user has the right to remove everything and take other packages instead (the systemd-dilemma). So even if you remove systemd and get in usage of another INIT-system, you are confronted with everything else: PulseAudio, Avahi, D-Bus, Java, Mono etc.

The "brave new world" of information-technology! Freedom of what? Choice? Where is the "choice"? Getting this in Hyperbola, as this distribution is really the first being sticked onto principles: Vice was removed (ouch), Kodi is going to be removed because of being semifree and so on. That can hurt, of course. But is good for being reflective on own usage and own dependencies! wink

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

12 (edited by throgh 2019-12-12 23:49:33)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

The problem with snap and flatpak? They may be technical free software, but on the ethical level and view they are just a failure as proprietary applications are distributed throughout them. Making therefore any free, libre distribution mixed up outside the personal HOME-directory!

But that's not the end of the story to be told as flatpak just have got Flathub as trusted source for an installation. There has to be done a hard fork of flatpak and create some kind of free repository only accepting libre, free software and appliances. And there is the breaking point as for now there is no further interest and libre distributions like Hyperbola have enough work to do on their own repositories - not even talking about Trisquel at this point, but it is the same. And the community is not that big we could manage this kind of fork for now. It was just rational to remove flatpak and same with snap as both are just semifree under best conditions.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

13 (edited by throgh 2019-12-14 11:43:03)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Getting criticism on the level fitting: As I've written about Microsoft and Red Hat I think it is also important to get the criticism on the correct level. The problem lies within getting the words on the literally wrong way. History shows many problems, teaching for being not to impulsive and looking forward for inclusion. Speaking about wordings like "revolution" is not a good thing as many events created unspeakable suffering and at last the risk having the former "good guys" in the position of the new authority. The wording "reformation" comes up as I think it is more fitting, but there are aspects able to be reformed and some not, never will and better to be ignored full. It's not that corporations and companies are the ultimate evil and they are not any kind of elite (smear wording for shortening information). It may be a matter of fact some think about being elitist, but that's their point being and they can be teached other way around throughout being ignored. And it is about ignoring corporations and companies taking influence as they will fall back into the known paradigm doing for the greater good. We have this in all the words at all debates around systemd for example: Take it, it's free!

With this claim in the early days of development of systemd the project was getting into the wider known sphere of users and developers. And what could go possibly wrong? Today we should have known better as most distributions just use systemd as some kind of "standard" and the FSF as the FSFE don't even think of speaking up against the risks for security and freedom. There is much work to be done for distributions getting back to freedom of choice, away from any kind of failed standardization and there also improving other INIT-projects. The problem is definition of freedom as "we" have also the right to NOT using a package, ignoring also the company and corporation behind. They are not important, the users and developers are. And keeping the repositories complete free of proprietary packages as it is just the decision of the users themselves having this in their HOME-directory, not within the system. Time for work at the definition of freedom also, about being believable! wink

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

14

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Wow, big thanks for all the thoughts and input regarding different problems of our time. But first things first: You have written down personal information about your usage of software. So do I: My insight for computers started back with using the C64. My dad had one and he showed me different games and possibilities on it. Tried there my first skills in programming - okay, it was one sample from the handbook, but I modified it. In the early 90s we had a PC with DOS and Windows 3.11. I was fixed onto DOS with all the classics at the time: Wing Commander, Privateer, System Shock, Ultima Underworld (I love adventures and roleplaying-games). With "Windows 95" I've started with some further programming and tests: First with Visual Basic, later with Visual C++. With the Pentium-generation I had a time to discover my personal favorites in gaming until today: Diablo and Fallout and I thought to have good operating-system back when "Windows 2000" was available. At that time my interests were most into desktop-applications, media and working on software I thought being helpful for myself and others, but being then proprietary.

I was fascinated from my first insight into GNU/Linux as my dad and myself had done this with SUSE Linux 6.0 when it was available, but we had then no further idea about X-server or desktop-environments as nobody told us the context - perhaps I'd have been migrated just earlier and faster? With the upcoming of "Windows XP" I had enough for the first time as the enforced activation was completely against my own views about computer hard- and software. But I've accepted that with protesting and what should I've say? Most friends and family used Windows, for everything. Windows stayed until 2010: So I have seen Vista and 7. But afterwards it was enough because the later versions were absolutely inacceptable for me, speaking about desktop AND technical enforced "toolsets" (including my everlasting love-hate for online-activation). And even more applications followed this nonsense: Adobe for example with their creative cloud. So I had also lost more and more of my tools for usage as I've learned media and programming later on for my job helping people into digital communication and making tools / applications.

Lucky me as I've found my entrypoint with Ubuntu first and later more and more with generic principles of free, libre software - as I've said this was always some personal interest. My wish would be having a complete free society based on those ideas: No patents and everybody, every being on the planet could have good life - very generic description because this would need much more space and take the topic away.

As you've described it: Most people don't think about the context of their used applications and services. Even the so-called smartphone - better "mobile computing device with phone-capabilities" - is so much depending on proprietary services and is at the middle of many people's life at the same time. If you don't want to participate, you're ignored - in best cases. I had many debates and discussions with different approaches: "DRM and Steam" was one as I had never further understatement for using those. Some friends made me a gift with "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" (if I remember correct) and this was one tryout making me interested into Steam and online-distribution. Of course I've tried it and did not find any inclusive way for me as it was completely everything I wanted and want to stand for. So I've quit short time after! Same with some online-games: "World of Warcraft" was one, "Age of Conan" was another. I've mentioned it above: I'm a passionate roleplayer and I like to tell stories, to fascinate others with interesting events full with characters and scenarios. But also here: Nothing to take more out of it. The time was interesting and I've learned much being even more into freedom and standing up against ignorance. With my entry into GNU/Linux I've also tried out some of the so-called "social networks" - the free, libre ones. And what I have seen there was even enough for me quitting again: Diaspora, Libertree, GNU Social and Mastodon - just for the records here.

So what's the point? Standing up for concrete principles, on many levels. Soft- and hardware of course, but also for social and political points. As I've learned from time: There is no perfect approach, but it is up on us individuals for being believable for ourselves. Holding the door for others, but they must enter on their own will, not being enforced. Otherwise the false paradigms will just continue: Greed? Arrogance? Ignorance? Searching for power? And people just try to copy known paradigms more and more, making the best idea, the best context afterwards more of the same. I'd like to have more distributions with freedom of choice, for example. But would this really help? I have doubts for it. So being small like Hyperbola has absolutely benefits as the community can define a secure and real libre distribution. smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

15

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Of course your point is absolutely clear and is well addition to the collection of "being believable". To get the stories a little more deeper: Back the days started with being completely on GNU/Linux I've started sharing insights about "Gaming on Linux" at Diaspora - as mentioned above I've used an account when there was more than only sharing postings from elsewhere (meanwhile most proprietary services as sources) and pictures. So I've tried to give a short but working view on what could be possible on GNU/Linux. And I have managed to get really many games working until today, old classics and some newer ones. But there was and is the line I won't cross: Running proprietary content from older, perhaps even forgotten titles is okay but with inclusion of DRM-mechanics and full of proprietary, toxic waste and services is and will never be accepted.

If there is interest I can summarize how to get older games working with Wine, how to manage dependencies correct and getting deeper into the spheres of static recompiling or even run your own modifief version of Wine. But that was always the main goal and I have not managed to get more interest on this aspect. It's a pity but that seems to be part of our time: Facts and information reduced and shortened as possible while there is much more complexity behind! But okay: Door is open, people just have to walk through on their own - for using a linguistic image.

But you've asked for roleplaying games: There is much more. On the generic level I'm used to so called pen-and-paper rulesets - meaning the good old "Dungeons and Dragons" or "The Dark Eye" for example. You have a rulemaster for story telling right in a group and people playing with you their characters. Then there is the part of "live action roleplaying": The aspect mentioned above with playing your character in combination with real armory and masking for a complete weekend. And last but not least: The good old PC-gaming and yes, absolutely ... Might and Magic is one of my favorites. You could run this one either throughout ScummVM or DOSBox. And there are many more titles being part of interest as the DOS-era has so much to offer. wink

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

16 (edited by throgh 2019-12-16 19:28:25)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

What about DRM within the Linux-kernel? What about all the proprietary firmware-blobs being builtin? Perhaps it is unknown for many users: The official Linux-kernel has just an own repository for proprietary firmware-blobs here. Those blobs (Binary Large Objects) are components, where no further source code is available. The integration of them goes back into 1996 when developers of the Linux-kernel official began to use them.

So even if you think your concurrent installation of a generic distribution is "free as in freedom", it is not. That's the point for Linux-libre being part of free, libre distributions since 2006 first started and the difference of any pragmatic view (meaning "Open-Source") and a full libre usage with social and ethic principles. One further example are graphiccards from AMD (ATI): You won't be able getting them running with all features included when using a libre kernel. The reason is just easy and tragic: The MESA-stack just needs proprietary firmware-blobs for them, as it the same with NVidia and Intel also on newer versions. Being believable means also showing the interests of companies where they can get to: Just leaving the sphere of free software as any inclusion won't end good or with the idealistic touch for companies opening. It's just another lie.

What about DRM mentioned above? When looking throughout implementations within the kernel-sources we find again participants with domains like intel.com and chromium.org as Intel also distribute HDCP. Regarding HDCP: It is official supported through the generic Linux-kernel! The conclusion is therefore: Nobody at the Linux-foundation has got a further problem with those proprietary technologies and DRM in general. And the users are fooling themselves believing this is some kind of "good" or just "pragmatic". Companies won't help in any way and their support is the same: Just for their own interests, nothing more and nothing less! Nothing for a common sense, nothing for people being "free as in freedom" and nothing about being believable.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

17

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Everyone is responsible for individual freedom, but there is a much greater context when the majority is ignoring issues with hard- and software for a very long time - same regarding mobile devices with phone-capabilities. Just for fun, just for accommodativeness people are ignoring major problems and also with Linux (without GNU). But the Linux-kernel is just one component of the GNU-ecosystem and should be changed in the future. Hurd? Or perhaps BSD likewise Hyperbola has this on the agenda?

It's not that the people don't know about those major flaws and failures, it's about they're ignoring as it is not important for now. But it will be important if companies go further, using the collected data or the dependencies made in the past - yeah I'm talking about YOU systemd and Red Hat. But for the time being: You could use the Acer-notebook perhaps on another level and change the Wifi-chip in the future? Therefore Hyperbola does run with NVidia, just Nouveau is not always performing well in some scenarios. But depending on the chipset it could be the possibility. It's a pity that Minifree has problems at the moment and I hope Leah can solve them.

For good DOS-games: Like I've said there is so much coming up from the DOS-era. Perhaps Stonekeep is something for you? A very cool roleplaying-game. Or Anvil of Dawn? smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

18 (edited by throgh 2019-12-16 21:32:37)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Just a sidenote about the wording Trojan Horse: It's a smear wording and phrase, shortening criticism and complexity in general. So of course Mono is really nothing to use as there are enough points regarding nonfree patents for example (Information within TODO-list) but it is not some kind of "trojan horse". This comparison is another phrase trying to demonize for a short outcome and glorify something. But in reality it's also not about one, glorified way or point of view, it's about principles or being just pragmatic.

To be really free means also being free from those false accusations and smear phrases. Yes, everyone tends to use them from time to time for example when being in anger. But in fact they're just about shortening a complex connection. Yes, companies like Microsoft are not helpful in any way, but they are also not evil or the biggests demon ever known. They are just doing what they think it is correct! But do the "free software"-community has to accept this? That's a major question and I think there is one simple answer: Just NO. So smear phrases and wordings - same with piracy - don't really help describing a situation or a connection.

Yes, Microsoft did campaigns trying defame GNU/Linux and GNU in general. But questioning yourself: Does it really help for doing the same or comparable attitude? Shortening information just end up with "alternate facts" and this is another smear word for those are just called out as lies. Do we need all of this? Yes, "free software" was and will be always political and therefore being attacked. But let's just do "our" things, "our" principles and being "free" of smear wordings and phrases for they are just not helpful creating open doors with open information and an inclusive culture for every being. Remembering these phrase: We as human beings have the right for doing failures, but we have absolutely the bounden duty to learn from the failures we have done!

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

19

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Ah and regarding OFF-TOPIC or better to be said "Gaming" I'd like to propose creating another thread named "Gaming on Linux" - of course with some rulesets as DRM should not be included. But using GNU/Linux is a whole bunch of fun, with libre games or also proprietary classics.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

20 (edited by throgh 2019-12-16 23:17:47)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Hmm, think it would be interesting for having another discussion in another thread as your annotations are valued but speaking for myself: I don't think in "countries", "nationalities" or "nations". It is not that I have no respect for the people, it's just I have no understatement for the definition of a "nation" as it is in some ways excluding and the concept of "we and the others". I like it more including - mentioned it every time again: I am an idealist! smile

So you mentioned this and I'm going to define my understatement a little bit more: I am a diabetic and I have enough experiences about being excluded. Also I have enough experiences with being bullied and mobbed back in my childhood, youth and also as an adult you are not safe of being excluded if you don't fit into pictures and some drawers. Therefore "nationality" is just another information for me and nothing more as for me in an utopian point of view there are no borders needed and people living in peace. Perhaps this is some naive view as this seem not to correspond with some kind of human nature or better with some participants in our global society!

But we can go back to picture of systemd: I have no problem with the existance of it, but it's just so I don't want to use it and I don't care about it as it consumes time I want to give in other fields - writing down some philosophical aspects here is one of them. And I have no personal problem with Mr. Poettering as I don't see him as some kind of person people like him to be. He is like everyone else, with the exclusion of doing work for the project systemd. In the end? Nothing better or worse. It's up to more making this a bigger problem as distributions do it with the inclusion of systemd and the exclusion of every other possible INIT-framework. The easier an answer could be, the more I am critical about it. smile
So speaking about different nationalities: I think they doesn't matter at all as we are all human beings, different views or ideas of course. But same rights and valueable of human rights. That should be the basics for working on libre software! Everything else takes the discussions on sideways and there are prejudices I think have no further room, because they exclude again instead being inclusive. Therefore I like the concept of Hyperbola and their social contract, especially: Play the ball, not the man. And the ball is the ignorance, the shortened answers of our time and after all excluding therefore people, which is just unfair and against everything "free software" and "free culture" stands for.

And last but not least: If you want, you can share your experiences with "gaming" especially here now.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

21 (edited by throgh 2019-12-16 23:21:51)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

No offense at all: I think there are recipes and ways coming together. But please: Don't feel stopped as it is just different views. And as I've said: I am an idealist - did I mentioned I'm in love with some views of "Star Trek"? wink Besides: I am eager to read more about your impressions and experiences in gaming for example. Feel free to share them as I've created just another thread for this. cool

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

22

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

So why just keeping Debian free from systemd? There are derivates doing this like antiX or Devuan. And they all use packages being to be discussed within repositories - Steam anyone? Being one kind of "universal distribution" does not mean to integrate everything with a sticker "Running under Linux!" on it. And I know this is shortened, but please let's wait for the final voting of the community from Debian until further work. INIT-freedom is so important as freedom within repositories is. Furthermore: What about Gnome and their integration of proprietary services? What about flatpak as the "free software"-community didn't manage to create any alternative to the so-called official "application-repository"? Just the argumentation: You just don't have to install proprietary applications!

Come on: That's a lame excuse for being pragmatic onto proprietary content and licensing from companies with no other goal as marketing. roll

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

23

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

cynicfm wrote:

But anyways i think it's interesting that hyperbola development team tries to create something like HyperBSD???

We are developing (not distributing) our own operating system called HyperbolaBSD, not HyperBSD. You can see in our nomenclatures page for further details about this project. Currently coadde is developing the kernel since all BSD ones are nonfree.

24

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Well? Ubuntu is a proof of concept about failed by design as  Canonical is now enforcing snap and people just do the same as always: Ignoring the major issues!

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1856054

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

25

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Purism and being believable: A very bitter lesson to learn. But again: Where is the real pure, free hardware? Nothing to be found here, nothing more to see here as it is again some more news from the same: More free with a little bit proprietary firmware-blobs needed.

https://puri.sm/products/librem-server/#specs

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!