Hello and thank you for your efforts,
I'm a software developer from Greece. With the Snowden leaks, my worst suspicions seem to be true.Ever since then, I've been trying to replace all of "my" proprietary software with free software (and all of the services and formats I've been using with free equivalents).
It was very easy to commit to this decision as I know that with free software I can do everything I did before and in many cases better.
However, its realization can be a little tricky sometimes, as for every software package (and format or service) I'm interested in, I've got to make certain that it is actually free.
Being open-sourced or licensed under a permissive license, even under GPL, is ofcourse a good pointer but does not seem enough, as for example Linux itself contains blobs.
Checking at the fsf directory for the package is something I always do, but if is not there, this doesn't mean it's not free.
And for formats, I mostly check FSF and Wikipedia.
As you know, services make the situation much more complex. For example, I'm interested in distance learning and MOOC services like http://www.complexityexplorer.org/ are a gigantic temptation for me. But I want to know what systems are being communicated when I make a request to such a service.
EdX is open sourced under AGPL, but is this enough for me to know?
In short, how can I know what a system I am using actually does, in a legal way, besides sticking to the systems I know for certain that are free? How do we deal with uncertainty?
Many thanks and sorry for the long post.
Ilias K.
At the moment, is it possible to obtain Blu-ray image quality using solely free formats? If so, how would you suggest? (Note that I have only elementary knowledge of multimedia systems).
Thanks,
Ilias K.
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Hi Kim, hi Theo,
# Kim Tucker <kctucker(a)gmail.com> [ 26. Nov 2013 @ 00:26 +0100]:
> Sorry I had to leave this afternoon (well, yesterday afternoon).
>
> Attached are some additional suggested changes in an .odt file with Edit/
> Changes/ Record turned on.
Perfect, thank you! I included most of the changes and will now be able to
transfer all texts to the graphical timeline.
> On 25 November 2013 18:55, <theo.schmidt(a)wilhelmtux.ch> wrote:
>> Is there no item about the OOXML-battle? This was a large issue in
>> Switzerland.
Thank you as well for your help. I'm wondering why this isn't in the pad
anymore. Karsten has added one or two news items but somehow it disappeared.
Anyway, I already wrote a new item trying to summarize all news about this
topic in one success. You can see it in the final timeline :)
You have been a big help for me and the whole project. Thank you!
Best regards,
Max
- --
Max Mehl - Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) - fsfe.org
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119, Berlin | Phone: +49-30-27595290
About me: http://fsfe.org/about/mehl | Blog: blog.max-mehl.com
Support us: http://fsfe.org/support | Homepage: max-mehl.com
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http://seravo.fi/2013/jolla-phone-first-impressions
Check out the screenshot with the terminal where uname -a shows GNU/Linux :)
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] finland(a)fsfe.org
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
I just put some comments about this on my blog - does anybody know if
software freedom is on the radar for Scottish freedom?
They published their manifesto today and it says nothing about the issue.
David Wheeler wrote an interesting article about the economics of
vulnerabilities. He fears that the current “‘vulnerability bidding wars’
[...] will create an overwhelming tsunami of zero-days available to a
wide variety of malicious actors.” Beside describing some general
problems of bounties in the security field, the main point of his
article is the idea to increase security by criminalising the selling of
“vulnerability information to anyone other than the supplier or the
reporter’s government.”
http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2013/11/16/#vulnerability-economics
About the effects of the vulnerability economics on Free Software
Wheeler writes:
The current situation might impede the peer review of open source
software (OSS), since currently people can make more money selling
an exploit than in helping the OSS project fix the problem.
Thankfully, OSS projects are still widely viewed as public goods, so
there are still many people who are willing to take the pay cut and
help OSS projects find and fix vulnerabilities. I think proprietary
and custom software are actually in much more danger than OSS; in
those cases it’s a lot easier for people to think “well, they wrote
this code for their financial gain, so I may as well sell my
vulnerability information for my financial gain”.
(Also posted on
https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/vulnerability-economics-and-free-software/)
Best Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - Vice President FSFE
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
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Hey discussion@,
in a few days, we want to release a timeline with FSFE's successes in the last
12 years. It consists of ~30-40 small boxes with a headline and some
description and is written in English - unfortunately not by a native speaker.
So I hope that one or two native English speakers may have time on monday
(25th) at lunchtime/afternoon to review the texts we have written and make
them sound natural and therefore more professional. I think you won't need
more than 15-20 minutes for this.
Thank you very much in advance!
Best regards,
Max
- --
Max Mehl - Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) - fsfe.org
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119, Berlin | Phone: +49-30-27595290
About me: http://fsfe.org/about/mehl | Blog: blog.max-mehl.com
Support us: http://fsfe.org/support | Homepage: max-mehl.com
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Hello,
I just wanted to share two pieces of information that I hope everybody
who do FS advocacy would know:
1) If the target uses Windows and has no experience with Free
Software, give them a VALO-CD. See www.valo-cd.net for details (in
English)
2) If the person already uses some FS, and you want them to make a
strategic decision to always us FS, suggest them to buy a
pre-installed Linux-laptop. This way their experience is likely to be
happy and at the same time they contribute in the process of "voting
with their money" to show laptop manufacturers that Linux support is
important.
My own favorite is the Dell XPS 13, which comes with Ubuntu
preinstalled but you can replace the distro with your favorite as the
drivers are open and custom kernel is public at Launchpad.net. Details
at http://seravo.fi/2013/dell-xps-13-ubuntu-edition-first-impressions
A long and updated list of pre-installed laptops available is at
http://linuxpreloaded.com/
--
Otto Kekäläinen [] otto(a)fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] finland(a)fsfe.org
Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204
Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support?otto
The OUYA game console is now out. It seems to be without DRM and their
development kit is available under a Free Software license.
http://shop.ouya.tv/products/ouyalimitededition
Does anyone here already know if there is any non-free software on the
boxes excluding the games?
Best Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - Vice President FSFE
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
> On 2013-11-19 07:57, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
> I am proud I've done something about this, advertised it, and helped
> things go in the better direction. We don't live in a perfect world
> yet, but we will eventually get there if we vote with our money and
> persuade our fellow geeks and perhaps even others to vote with their
> money.
Indeed, at least buying a laptop without an OS or with linux
pre-installed.
After you showed me your laptop at ECM, I am looking for a
replacement of mine.
Probably I will buy one from System76
(https://www.system76.com/home/), don't know which model yet.
Cheers,
Mauricio