76

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

What is it about freedom, especially when talking about mobile devices and their operating-system? Is Android - meaning the "Android Open Source Project" - really free? Is the inclusion of the so-called "Google Applications" also freedom of choice? No, it is not and I think people should stop talking about like Google is a "helpful nice guy". Yes, as already written here within the thread: There has to be no further evil intention in the first place. But having "no intentional evil deed" does not mean, that an individual won't do anything "evil" furthermore. So, yes: Free to choose, free to use, but there is it: Free to look and having the full control? Here lies the reasoning: No further freedom to be found here. We are not free to control, but this is an elementary basis of all. The original "Android" is not free as in freedom and so Google is not free, their services are given free in the first place, but with high price afterwards: The usage of all collected data without knowledge of the user what is done with it.

Yeah, that's also part of the capitalism, as it destroys everything on its way. But freedom includes everything and instead talking about this false picture and imagery there should be more support for projects like Replicant. Including the "Google Applications" or some emulated interfaces for them is not the way to go and won't be it, forever. 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!

77

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

What is it about freedom, especially when talking about mobile devices and their operating-system? Is Android - meaning the "Android Open Source Project" - really free? Is the inclusion of the so-called "Google Applications" also freedom of choice? No, it is not and I think people should stop talking about like Google is a "helpful nice guy". Yes, as already written here within the thread: There has to be no further evil intention in the first place. But having "no intentional evil deed" does not mean, that an individual won't do anything "evil" furthermore. So, yes: Free to choose, free to use, but there is it: Free to look and having the full control? Here lies the reasoning: No further freedom to be found here. We are not free to control, but this is an elementary basis of all. The original "Android" is not free as in freedom and so Google is not free, their services are given free in the first place, but with high price afterwards: The usage of all collected data without knowledge of the user what is done with it.

Yeah, that's also part of the capitalism, as it destroys everything on its way. But freedom includes everything and instead talking about this false picture and imagery there should be more support for projects like Replicant. Including the "Google Applications" or some emulated interfaces for them is not the way to go and won't be it, forever. wink

Capitalism is just bad by itself, without rules preventing data collection, bad things will happen.

Socialism and captialism need regulation and each other to have a balanced system. However, finding balance is mega hard especially given, the rich like to control things... hmm

PS, android is definitely free as in beer, but a good rule of thumb is, if something is free from a corporation or big business, you are the product.  hmm

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

78

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

Well, thanks for the feedback but I think otherwise about. As written most within the postings: It is my personal conclusion and I have not the ultimate ratio or better answer. Would be not interesting otherwise! wink And of couse: Better getting the proof of being "wrong" with the personal conclusions. But my experience told me otherwise around. Yes, people on the IRC tell you many things but even though the possibility of systemd integrated within the portages has some conclusions into otherwise they could have also started to be into INIT-freedom instead, so the question is just answered for this moment and that has nothing to say about the future from my point of view. While I dont know if the plans of Hyperbola getting more concrete regarding s6 and shepherd for example, better to have clear principles. OpenRC is coming up from the developers of Gentoo and that's good though. But the point is: How long until there is no further interest on OpenRC because it is too much time investing for further development and upholding more about systemd? Remember: This service-framework got a big sponsor behind and therefore big interests. Or has anyone seen the team behind systemd asking for support and donations? I didn't but instead there is seen this: Take it, it is free! Such a big monolithic bloatware systemd has become and it won't stop. wink Gentoo has therefore also enough proprietary portages for a possible installation and for being not believable to "defend" and stand either for freedom or especially free culture, speaking from my point of view.

EDIT: Regarding Slackware you could have a look here!

But at least they aren't lying about being freedom restricting, like Trisquel, Debian, Fedora, etc...

Redhat software is freedom restricting despite its free software license. Such irony is thick enough to be used as gravy.

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

79 (edited by throgh 2020-04-06 06:45:45)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

zapper wrote:

Capitalism is just bad by itself, without rules preventing data collection, bad things will happen.

Socialism and captialism need regulation and each other to have a balanced system. However, finding balance is mega hard especially given, the rich like to control things... hmm

PS, android is definitely free as in beer, but a good rule of thumb is, if something is free from a corporation or big business, you are the product.  hmm

Thanks, we need rules and regulation. The problem itself is: We also need more discussion and actions to be taken at all. When it comes just to economy and capitalism our complete system has failures, worldwide. But I would like to be just more critical when talking about Android being "free as in free beer". The problem is the hard inclusion of the Google interfaces and many other applications using those proprietary frameworks coming up from Facebook for example.

That's the difference I want to make: Creating a system is one thing, but Android depends on many non-free interfaces coming up and we are not quite talking about those libraries or firmware-blobs being included for a "complete functional device". So after all: Companies are not charitable or tolerant. They’re money-making machines with budget set aside for PR and Google wants us to believe that Android functions like "free as in freedom" - in fact this is not the case. Devices are locked in by default and speaking about mobile devices in general: The possibilities to change parts or change the system are more or less not that big, a desaster for producing garbage in general.

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!

80 (edited by throgh 2020-04-06 17:48:04)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

zapper wrote:

But at least they aren't lying about being freedom restricting, like Trisquel, Debian, Fedora, etc...

Redhat software is freedom restricting despite its free software license. Such irony is thick enough to be used as gravy.

Okay, that's correct. smile But the problem itself is also: Why including non-free applications and interfaces? There are enough ports for example having Skype or Microsoft Teams. Therefore Gentoo is perhaps better, but in the end also the development is questionable when just having a look on OpenRC itself - which in fact is just distributed throughtout Github. The field of themes is so big. Sorry for having some kind of whatboutism here in the argumentation, but I have no further understatement for some people in the sphere of some distributions and projects. When talking about "freedom" it is also about talking of "freedom of choice". And OpenRC is therefore questionable in the end when being just developed on a complete proprietary platform instead on Savannah, LibreGit or Notabug for example. Another reasoning against systemd itself!

Doesn't mean that we should stop using OpenRC in the first place - systemd therefore is another thing as you already written - but we should question way more elements. Even projects like ScummVM use this proprietary hosting-platform, besides others like Discord. This is dangerous from my point of view and not a good development at all. Just the option to switch to sndio here with Hyperbola is one good example, that the generic way is correct. There should be more: Even using other INIT-systems like GNU shepherd, runit or s6 instead OpenRC: Respecting the real freedom means also respecting sideways and distributed repositories, not the big ones like Github or Gitlab itself. Deleting Github is the way to go and leaving all that crap back to Microsoft!

The elementary question: Why should "we" trust a company pretending to "love open-source" but with a complete proprietary software-stack in the backyard? And why should "we" trust projects not being able to migrate otherwise, not searching for community-driven websites like even LibreGit or NotABug? Or even create own repositories? For example: ScummVM has its very own infrastructure, but is using Github and Discord? Ah, okay? And of what reasoning? Not really helpful at all as this is all a normalization of those services and restricting software-freedom on the long run. We are talking about freedom and those things exclude everyone being not willing to support proprietary software being more and more on the rise.

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!

81

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Okay, which website could have malfunctioning when locking out jsDelivr? Could become quite a reasonable test for a decnatrlized web itself. But wait: free, fast, and reliable. Where should those attributes to be found? Think there is nothing more than marketing when we have a look onto here. Removing npm and nodeJS as those are not free.

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!

82

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

We should be honest: The state of graphical interfaces is not the best under GNU/Linux. KDE and Gnome? Forget about them. While KDE is ongoing with Qt and their "problems", Gnome is more or less not only bloatware, but also ignorant about systemd. LxQt has failed for now being safe for lower-sized hardware and consuming too much memory for now and Xfce is running behind the failures of GTK3. So what's next? Cinnamon? Same as with Gnome. Deepin? Bloated and concluding not to be trusted as bringing their own "application-storage" full with proprietary software.

What's left?

LXDE, IceWM, DWM, JWM, CWM and all those desktop-environments being independent. Yes, they are not that full with "eye-candy", but they are usable and perhaps it is better throwing all those others out of the repositories as they will break the principles of free software sooner or later.

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!

83 (edited by throgh 2020-04-14 10:12:02)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

You know that F-Droid stock repositories are not compliant with the GNU Free System distribution guidelines? Replicant has removed F-Droid in the next Release-Candidate 6.0 0004 RC1. Reading more here in the listings: https://redmine.replicant.us/projects/r … viceStatus

So much for the so-called "free as in freedom" of those alternatives as they already include unfree services and applications relying on that for example here: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/

This has to stop and being marked as the decision of the users, not instead coming up from offered repositories. Applications and services have to be really free and open. Everything is the "freedom of the user" deciding otherwise when installing. Without being strict onto principles we are in the risk to loose everything: Freedom, privacy and security about having something undefined! Android is NOT free as in freedom and needs much work being "free".

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!

84

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

More to read about the mentioned issue as F-Droid and its stock repositories being NOT compliant to the GNU FSDG: https://redmine.replicant.us/issues/1878

Another example about Android and its problems with false compromises: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.git … yalpstore/
Also an example about "Open-Source" and the difference being free software.

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!

85

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Why Mono should have no further room in libre distributions? First of all it is really not free at all and have enough problems coming up with it regarding licensing and patents as Microsoft. For a closer look into: https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?id=274

But there is more as games or better to say game-engines like OpenRA don't respect freedom. Why this now? They are using Github and even implementations based on the engine-code make more usage of all those anti-features - no link from me as I don't want to give more impressions on unfree software. If you want lookup this yourself, just search for Fractured Realms. Being believable means also being strict onto freedom, privacy and security. We have no time for making false compromises!

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!

86

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

We should be honest: The state of graphical interfaces is not the best under GNU/Linux. KDE and Gnome? Forget about them. While KDE is ongoing with Qt and their "problems", Gnome is more or less not only bloatware, but also ignorant about systemd. LxQt has failed for now being safe for lower-sized hardware and consuming too much memory for now and Xfce is running behind the failures of GTK3. So what's next? Cinnamon? Same as with Gnome. Deepin? Bloated and concluding not to be trusted as bringing their own "application-storage" full with proprietary software.

What's left?

LXDE, IceWM, DWM, JWM, CWM and all those desktop-environments being independent. Yes, they are not that full with "eye-candy", but they are usable and perhaps it is better throwing all those others out of the repositories as they will break the principles of free software sooner or later.

Draco Desktop is another option actually, only thing is, for the time being to use certian features it still requires dbus. 

But I suppose if you can convince the author of this repo:

https://github.com/rodlie/draco

to make it usable without dbus...

PS btw, he says he might be willing, but its not on his immediate agenda.

But yeah, he might be willing later on.

That being said, I would love it if he would make this usable without dbus:

https://github.com/rodlie/powerkit

Aka, so it could work with HyperbolaBSD. smile

Anywho I was getting off track,

LXDE, XFCE, Draco Desktop,

Those desktops are decent.

LXQT kind of sucks to be honest though, for a few reasons, one of which being, its ugly.

Of course that's just my opinion, but yeah...

I dislike bloatware myself.  I detest gnome3 kde and cinnamon and even mate is kind of meh...

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

87

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:

You know that F-Droid stock repositories are not compliant with the GNU Free System distribution guidelines? Replicant has removed F-Droid in the next Release-Candidate 6.0 0004 RC1. Reading more here in the listings: https://redmine.replicant.us/projects/r … viceStatus

So much for the so-called "free as in freedom" of those alternatives as they already include unfree services and applications relying on that for example here: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/

This has to stop and being marked as the decision of the users, not instead coming up from offered repositories. Applications and services have to be really free and open. Everything is the "freedom of the user" deciding otherwise when installing. Without being strict onto principles we are in the risk to loose everything: Freedom, privacy and security about having something undefined! Android is NOT free as in freedom and needs much work being "free".

F-Droid at least mentions which services are non-free or have anti-features, which is more than I can say for gaggle aka google and their services. ;/

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

88

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

zapper wrote:

F-Droid at least mentions which services are non-free or have anti-features, which is more than I can say for gaggle aka google and their services. ;/

Of course, more or less this is better. But when having strict rules this would be not necessary. Same with snap or flatpak: All of them may be some kind of "free", but more an illusion of freedom itself. That's a pity! sad

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!

89 (edited by throgh 2020-04-21 18:00:25)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

zapper wrote:

Draco Desktop is another option actually, only thing is, for the time being to use certian features it still requires dbus. 

But I suppose if you can convince the author of this repo:

https://github.com/rodlie/draco

to make it usable without dbus...

PS btw, he says he might be willing, but its not on his immediate agenda.

But yeah, he might be willing later on.

That being said, I would love it if he would make this usable without dbus:

https://github.com/rodlie/powerkit

Aka, so it could work with HyperbolaBSD. smile

Anywho I was getting off track,

LXDE, XFCE, Draco Desktop,

Those desktops are decent.

LXQT kind of sucks to be honest though, for a few reasons, one of which being, its ugly.

Of course that's just my opinion, but yeah...

I dislike bloatware myself.  I detest gnome3 kde and cinnamon and even mate is kind of meh...

Thanks, but as I've written earlier here: https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic … 1886#p1886
We are in absolutely need for independent services and infrastructure. I've tried this out myself along for about two years making some kind of independent video-hosting. You can imagine: Not the most people used the alternative as it was not comparable to YouTube and many more, not that kind of full with "entertainment", not that outstanding user-experience and much more. Just from the roots done, but this is exactly what we need when looking all around in these days. Replicant without F-Droid is of course not the best but when looking at the applications: Even the ones being free licensed under the GPL can be found on proprietary places and that's the point: What is changed when free, libre software is used on that places? Most people make it easy and use them as some kind of addendum. When bored the software ends up in the trash and is ignored. No independent places are done until now, no own infrastructure - okay, there are some first starting points like F-Droid but we need therefore being completely independent from places like Github, YouTube and much more. That's the problem and the same with many desktop-environments. When loading Gnome and KDE without hardware-acceleration this gets fast very complicated. GNU/Linux was once known for being usable with old devices. But the state now is not getting better as even more people want to get rid of x86-codebase, throwing 32bit out of the way. Being believable means also being respectful with ressources, respectful with information and not that kind of pragmatism.

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!

90

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

And another insight as even more distributions get lost more and more over time: Either they're loosing focus or they get lost because of interest. Staying into for now are just Hyperbola, Dragora, GuixSD, Parabola and Trisquel. The ones with closest principles are just Hyperbola and Dragora as even GuixSD accepts way too much of everything else, even Rust, Mono and Java. Well if this is the future of "libre software" I'd just stay here. And even if this got lost, I'd rather host own mirrors and getting more into development above time.

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!

91

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Welcome to the dependencies of bloated packages: You want a toolset for burning CDs or DVDs? Well, go on there is nothing to see here as k3b is depending on libpulse.so.0 - whatever the reason maybe. And Brasero? Okay, needs avahi and gvfs. Way too much dependencies to really bloated projects in general. Maybe we should talk again about being believable? Small and robust operating-system means exactly this and it can look also pretty without relying on those bloatware.

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!

92 (edited by throgh 2020-04-29 00:05:28)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Free software getting more and more on sideways: Of course fixing problems and security issues is at hand one major goal. But when looking after some newer projects, their dependencies and their development cycle we should having a more clear discussions if this represents "freedom, security and privacy". The problem itself? Well, being more and more dependent on frameworks with absolute versioning on the edge. Meaning after even some months libraries are just too old to build and therefore resulting applications and projects are impossible for further access. The result are even faster development cycles overall: Either only bigger distributions getting into this or the model "rolling release" comes at hand with more or less doubtful privacy as enough projects include proprietary services like Discord and more.

Seriously, is this the so-called vision of the future? Just "some kind of free" is not "free as in freedom" as this includes also freedom of choice. Where is it? Can I choose not to install some package because I don't want to use it? Where is the GNU-mentalitiy, having everything optional to compile and run? More or less the GNU-stack is becoming more and more dependant on frameworks and false languages like Rust or node.js. Reading here for esample the problems with Rust: https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id … edom_flaws

Full with freedom flaws and nevertheless there are thoughts building onto this more and more. Tryout to compile IceCat without Rust: Impossible! So this is not being believable and more about big flaws being just accepted. What's next? Java is full with freedom issues, Rust is the same, node.js got more into Github and Mono is a bad joke. They all are not "free as in freedom" and we want to build more onto this base? Stop this and think about it.

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!

93

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

throgh wrote:
zapper wrote:

F-Droid at least mentions which services are non-free or have anti-features, which is more than I can say for gaggle aka google and their services. ;/

Of course, more or less this is better. But when having strict rules this would be not necessary. Same with snap or flatpak: All of them may be some kind of "free", but more an illusion of freedom itself. That's a pity! sad

I agree with you, as for what you say below,

notabug.org and gitea.io

Are good, well gogs.io might also be good, its definitely better than github and gitlab.  smile

But I disagree on one thing, if the software is libre, regardless of where it is hosted, it should be used as long as it is A: has all five freedoms including the one where you don't have to use it if you don't want to, ie no forced vendor lock-in.

But also, unless it has any extreme shitty like security issues or patent issues then I see no issue with using it. 

Openrc, Draco Desktop, Powerkit, all these are fine in my book, same with Lumina Desktop.

No offense, but I think this is a rare moment where I even feel like what your suggesting might be a tad too extreme. 

That being said, I agree with you on most issues.  But I don't think Emulatorman or Hyperbola Devs would agree with your thoughts on this.

If I am misunderstanding however, feel free to tell me. 

Incidently, github has a new page that interests me greatly:

https://balthazar.space/wiki/Balthazar

https://github.com/balthazar-space/balhazar

This idea is based on eoma68, but I am hoping it will be executed way better than eoma68 was. 

It looks like they are doing more planning, so yeah. I think its possible. Also, its going to be based on RISC-V!

Anywho, You may want to look at both of those pages, particularly, the top one, do some exploring aka. wink

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

94 (edited by throgh 2020-04-29 10:10:41)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Thanks for your thoughts, but the idea behind the call to delete github is just to build a more decentalized web and infrastructure. I don't think this is extreme as it is the basic idea of freedom itself and I don't get it why so many projects jump on this train as it is driving in the complete wrong direction. Software itself may be libre for now, but what about the future? And that's the point counting as Microsoft just pretends to "love open-source". They just do the opposite. There are small steps right done!

Yes, I don't think Microsoft itself is doing all of this intentional or there is some "evil masterplan behind". But it is about money and the good people there have no further chance when it comes to this point. And we also don't have any further chance when it comes to this point as the projects itself. So better getting away from centralized infrastructure and some kind of cloud-services. Better getting away from some false illusions. You may disagree me here and I don't want to be agreed here. Perhaps I'm completely wrong in my thoughts? Just have to look at Gnome for now. They host their own infrastructure, good thing. But they already make false compromises and that's the point I'm talking about. An example as picture below:

https://framapic.org/PgVU7xWhS6FQ/sa9SWpDcUm39.jpg

Same with the examples regarding F-Droid I have given above and the reasoning why exactly Replicant had given up to distribute the application as integral component. Same with all the flaws given in the wiki like emulators, Chrome / Chromium and Rust!

It's not that Microsoft / Github will took all free, libre projects overnight, it's about getting dependent on centralized infrastructure more and more overtime. It's a long run! And same with projects on Qt as the company behind is also defined over income and money, not about principles and ideals. Where is the fork? And what bout the future itself? Is it extreme having thoughts about this? Well, there are enough warnings. And I don't tend to listen / follow some conspiracy theories. But being dependent on centralized infrastructure can't be good. Nobody needs to agree with me here at this point, but I think it is just to simple at all describing this as "extreme". smile We could "remove" those freedom-flaws, but being honest: How long would this be possible? And is it really worth the time to do it again and again with every new version of Gnome and KDE Plasma for example? How many people have interest in doing this and what about people just giving up? The (peer)group gets smaller afterwards. So yes: Projects like Draco Linux and OpenRC are "free as in freedom" and I don't think this will ever change. But their (peer)group is not that kind of big and what about the point where Microsoft have some more requirements to the users, changing the way to address and use Github? When the projects mentioned just quit, because first their usergroup is not that kind of big and their developer(s) don't have the possibility to host a complete own infrastructure? There are enough examples about those abandoned projects, even when searching through the AUR some of them are easy to be found and the PKGBUILD is just malfunctional because there is no further source-code to load, nothing to modify. The reasoning: The project died, a very silent death. Comparing this to systemd: It is also hosted on Github, but there is enough interest behind and also enough financial interest itself to build own repositories and infrastructure or just staying there with renewed requirements from Microsoft.

It is the same with hardware and in fact all starts here with the basic problem: If there is not enough interest, free and libre hardware is only done afterwards by enthusiasts. Most people don't even think about this, using UEFI and every modern machine with the promise of even more "power to compute". While producing even more garbage, we have already knowledge that Linux (without GNU) is following also this course overtime and the kernel itself is implementing just more and more proprietary definitions and blobs. That's the point: Pragmatism is the wrong way and it is also done just because we are too convenient (talking about the free software-community in a whole) accepting those minor flaws. But a minor flaw as problem can become to a major flaw overtime. We have enough mentions within the wiki and just to point at Mozilla Firefox itself as a project: Pretending to protect freedom and awareness of security and privacy, but just doing the opposite. Minor flaws can be technical faults overtime in regard to freedom and privacy: Removing Zeitgeist and geoclue for example (Gnome), but what about the point where those optional dependencies become essentials? Afterwards another search has to start how to get rid of freedom flaws. Getting back to Firefox there is even nothing left because Rust is essential to compile newer versions.

The point is very clear: In a long run, the "freedom of choice" could disappear more and more. Only some bigger projects are left and that's completely inacceptable for me. So I write down thoughts and warnings! I will never enforce anyone to agree with me, even better to disagree and in the end being on the wrong way as it is not that kind of sinister. But until today we just can see the opposite, with all of this and I fear this is just the beginning as the concepts of "free, libre software" and "free, libre hardware" is so marginalized to this point, that is just summarized with some kind of open-source. Projects like Libreboot or Replicant are just a good demonstration and it is better for them having their own place as it is here the same with Hyperbola. So "we" can have the chance being small but interested and focussed. The warnings are the same because we are on little islands. And as much F-Droid started being some good alternative, as much they've failed this point with pragmatism in regard to applications in the repositories with access to proprietary services, proprietary resources and even though no source-code at all. We have also to think about ethics - meaning "we" as global community into "free, libre software" - and not only some kind of following the common sentenced "free as in freedom".

And when looking for the next years to come: Linux (without GNU) could vanish into the "cloud". You can rely on technology moving in the direction of capital and when much of the capital is distributed to / through the military it's not surprising that UEFI restricted boot is becoming the norm, DRM is becoming an integral part of the web, and "free, libre software" is being described as "piracy" in a common sense. If we stay passive, make some pragmatic choices, we (talking about all of us) could have to pay a very high price for this. And again: I hope I'm just wrong about it. I hope this is just some sinister picture out of my mind and I can lay down this one as some dystopian imagery! The "free, libre soft- and hardware" have got no further lobby and when trying to get this, sooner or later the project will get onto catastrophic sideways or just become more or less the opposite of free. It is all about capital, money and profit to get some kind of "lobby" and I think calling the warnings about this "extreme" is just wrong because it marginalize the positioning as it also helps to support simplified views about hosting-platforms like Github - not even speaking about the criticism regarding Github long before bought through Microsoft as this was also ignored by many. Github is not the friendly supporter of "open-source" or "free software", it is about a complete business-model and making money out of the data hosted itself. Getting into this cannot end good as we all know enough others in the web / Internet itself. sad

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!

95 (edited by throgh 2020-04-29 10:16:19)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Sharing principles about "being believable":

  • free, libre software per definition of five freedoms

  • free, libre culture for everyone and open-minded in between as part of solidarity and empathy

  • open and free standards for soft- and hardware

  • release and opening of public data for everyone without boundaries

  • protection of personal data for everyone

  • internet neutrality

  • human rights and freedoms in the face of digital spaces and also in the analogue world

  • social equality in the society everywhere, speaking of solidarity and empathy, reaching out through decentralization instead of some big names and platforms

Teaching each other more about ethics, about clear principles and wrong-sided flaws leading to catastrophic situations.
And yes: This is an utopian view, I know. But just writing down some dream, some idealistic perspective is better than just to accept the "status quo" and making some "deal with it". wink
Yes, we need ideals and idealism. But do we need big groups giving us those thoughts? We need discussions and proposals wide spreading as the FSF itself is loosing more and more. And for now not talking about the FSFE as they have good ideas but being already into the lobby with Google and more. Using this last given "picture": It is about names of the single supporters as individuals, not about corporations and companies as capitalism will ultimately break the idealistic picture of "free, libre software" otherwise.

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!

96 (edited by throgh 2020-04-30 08:43:25)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Being free with own decisions and thereofre making modifications to the hardware you own:

Perhaps installing OpenWRT or LibreCMC on your router?
Perhaps flash Replicant on your mobile device?
Perhaps flash Core- or even better Libreboot on your computer's mainboard?

Afterwards trying different operating-systems being free and open for your own modifications. The contrary is also your own decision, but why using insults for people doing this? I read every day the same: Mean words about being "extreme" or "radicale", not those words itself but in the end it is all about throwing beings out of something, excluding them and not because they have said something disgusting about others. Just because they want to do different with their hardware. And time is showing: It is getting more and more compilcated to do so. Being believable means the opposite: Look after others, ask them questions and show empathy. Discussing like here in the thread, so thanks to everyone reading and writing down the personal point of view. It's not about acceptance without questioning!

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!

97 (edited by throgh 2020-05-03 00:10:13)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Simple programs are generally superior and are considered more elegant than messy programs with endless flaws and massive technical debt, including dependencies. That’s what many things became, perhaps because it’s conveniently assumed that security doesn’t really matter and old computers should just be retired. No matter the cost: Progress is all that matters? Being pragmatic and well, any program stays free even hosted onto proprietary services? Remembering the four freedoms: Use, study, share and improve. Okay here we are for now:

USE
Generally speaking possible. But please remember: Only when all dependencies are installed. You don't want something enabled? Oh, perhaps some application cannot be used at all.

STUDY
Important, but only possible with enough time when you have so much bloatware installed. You want some names? systemd, pulseaudio, avahi and many more. And even though: There are enough participants being paid for their projects. In general this is good, but looking at the names: IBM / Red Hat, Microsoft, Google etc.
Companies doing this for profit and how can a project done throughout private persons in their free time being compared towards those done as job? Reading throughout million lines of code and trying to understand while projects getting bigger and bigger in the name of "progress". Projects getting monolithic by any means and becoming even so complicated that they push away others - yeah, talking about you systemd. But hey: "Take it, it is FREE!" Doubt it and why is there no further action regarding those projects like systemd? Just because of the licensing? Come on. And the alternatives get no further support or even worse are ignored in general?

SHARE
Sharing throughout proprietary services is not really helpful and contrary towards the libre thought of "free culture". So many projects make usage of Github, Discord and much more. Why? Because it is conveniently adapted as most people use those services? And why not using the own free, libre projects? Building services on top of them? Why not questioning the flaws of newly adapted languages / frameworks like Rust, Node.js and Mono? Sharing pragmatism has lead us here to this point and there are not really many projects left with strict principles about free, libre software.

IMPROVE
The question is: What to improve? A kernel filled with binary firmware-blobs? A monolithic system-management filled with so many flaws? Many dependencies from bloatware-projects? Desktop-environments being messy and bloated from the ground up?

This is increasingly the mentality in “Linux” (without GNU) and enough GNU-projects are also not respecting the "freedom of choice", the fifth freedom being not mentioned here: The freedom NOT to use some library / component and being in denial with its installation.
And showing respect for all those people trying to build free, libre software is the major point, nevertheless on Github or on own decentralized structures. But in general "free software" is marginalized in regards to buzzwords like "open-source" bringing the pragmatic viewing mentioned earlier. When you read this, perhaps you see some possibility moving away your project from centralized structures? Or you have own ideas helping others doing so? Yeah, this won't bring more talk about software. But what matters? Having a future without centralization and false compromises or doing that with the knowledge that all of this is going to vanish?

And a straw man often thrown out is that "developers are not obligated to write or do anything". This is not an excuse for terrible ethics or terrible mistreatment of the user! The contrary: The argument ignores completely what freedom should imply even because the user is free to choose and should have the freedom to question the way who in fact owns the machine in use: The user or somebody else? With convenience and pragmatism more and more data is given away. Why in fact is there a need to "free" software being licensed under free, permissive licensing? Removing therefore interfaces and connections towards proprietary services: That makes the software the contrary! Software Disobedience is an important part of being free, running also into errors and making them to learn more from the concurrent situation. Having a light system and decentralized infrastructure we can really trust. And that also includes making forks of used patches from Debian right here for the packages at Hyperbola. The other way around? Well, Debian is moving and deleting folders and files. While the net is not forgetting, sometimes data is just disappearing or moved. Same with links onto Github and others! So all comes down to make a complete fork of all PKGBUILDs in the near future, not only the ones Hyperbola made and modified. Even though to remember all readers that you can download them:

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!

98 (edited by throgh 2020-05-03 22:31:03)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

The thing about "being believable" is also being NOT missionary. Yes, free software is one idealistic picture. But the thing is: Idealism should never lead to any blind fanatic picture as ignoring the will and thoughts of others is NOT the way to go at all. So how to walk forward? Stay clear for your own principles and do as you wish with respecting others and their own ways. When somebody don't want to use free, libre soft- and hardware there is nothing to do, nothing to speak about it and nothing to convince. Being just convinced for own decisions and therefore being straight forward for own principles. Never trying to be some kind missionary as this is nothing more than "marketing".

And we should be also honest: There are enough mean stories out there being written as some kind of proof that pragmatic views are just better and "free, libre software", the GPL and more are just a blind ideology. Don't give those stories more evidence! Just give them the reality and be not part of the problem.

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!

99 (edited by throgh 2020-05-04 15:16:11)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Using Github is the same as using Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure in general: Those are all proprietary services and they just kick out projects being disliked. I don't want to write about censorship in general: It is just this ignorance making all even more complicated. Handbrake is using centralized hosting-services from Amazon for example (just downloaded a newer package for some tryouts). Maybe the software is not getting proprietary, but the services behind are this and nothing more. And it is just about time when those services have done enough damage to free, libre software as the principles are ruined completely. Same with Microsoft being more and more into Python. So Hyperbola should stick with Python 2.

Yes, this sounds not so good at all. But being free mans also to stay away from proprietary services as nothing good is coming out of them. Using own infrastructure and stop making use of all those "new media"-nonsense! And the companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and many more are not our friends and even if pretending ... they don't love free software. It is all about the money: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … 019-Report

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!

100 (edited by throgh 2020-05-07 23:47:43)

Re: Sharing information: About being believable!

Being believable and why exactly the FSFE for example just fails in being honest and strict bound onto principles. You want some examples?

Here is the first one. While I don't really like (anti-)social networks - and in my personal opinion they have done more damage than everything else - using more centralized, proprietary services just helps who? And what kind of signal should this be? Twitter? YouTube? Oh okay, some kind of Mastodon, but well where is the difference when doing such foul compromises? Just for the search of "likes" and making much more noise? When somebody is interested in "free software" there is no need to carry everything back into proprietary services because this is a complete false signal for everyone as those are in some way "okay". No, they are not okay. But well coming back onto the next and second one: The so-called donors. Is this a community-driven project or just more of being somewhat of an echochamber of other interests? I had those discussions back the days when using GNU-Social with some people being officials of the FSFE and they answered always on two ways: Either I never got any kind of feedback about the question being financed throughout Google and therefore being in some way dependent or the other way around rejecting any kind of context as this won't have any kind of influence.

Well? Maybe no direct influence, nevertheless this is a foul compromise and just being more pragmatic. Where is the reality of freedom? No criticism back about Microsoft being more and more into the development of the Linux-kernel? No mentioning about "the Hurd" as alternative? No criticism towards Mozilla and their own failures? No criticism back about missed out init-freedom and I'm not even mentioning the fifth freedom: Not to use some package and make it your own way. It seems the battle is lost as Linux (without GNU) is just heading towards more and more container-nonsense, pragmatic choices and no strict principles. Ah and we should also take into account all of those bloatware running around: dbus, avahi, pulseaudio ... those false pragmatic languages being some high promises and nevertheless full with patents and licensing being the opposite of "open" like Rust, Mono and of course Java. Thanks for nothing, FSFE! Ask yourself: Who owns your "computer" and your "data"? And why do you exactly use some kind of service? Because everyone is using it? Because friends and family are using it? Are there really no alternatives? I've said earlier: Being believable means being not missionary. And here is the point being: We can show what software following strict principles can be up to, exactly at this point. But it won't get easier with all those proprietary services around and just small steps forward. It's just everone's personal decision: No offense when using otherwise proprietary services, but the problem is not any kind of evil plan (there is none), it is just the shortening and so-called "standardization" while the mass of people is deciding and fails in having multiple possibilities being kept alive. Our world is complex and not deterministic at once!

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!