Well it sounds cool. Definetly trying it out once I have my own server (with everything that is involved).

I mean most phones have +64gb of memory, no? With that space I can have hundreds of songs that I can listen at any time without having internet connection or not. Why would I stream it to my self (which requires internet connection) if I can just have it in my phone or computer?

Yeah but at the same time those people are already tech braindead. Maybe the people that has to go against them it’s not the tech brain dead but the people that care about tech ethics. For example, game developers not accepting porting to Nintendo platforms.

I really don’t get why indie devs sign contracts with Nintendo, when Nintendo literally holds tons of blood in his hands from destroyed indie games by demands.

A good mobile alternative to Signal is Simplex, it works both on Android and GNU+Linux. It’s AGPLv3. You have it on F-Droid

I have a Thinkpad X220 myself with Libreboot (coreboot distro). But if you do think that microcode updates is bad you can go for Canoeboot. Always check the chipset in order to know exactly what kind of me_cleaner you have to apply.

Thinkpad X220 works out of the box with Linux-Libre (I use Guix). You probably will need a WiFi card that works with the free software kernel drivers, you can check h-node for hardware that works with free software drivers.

The thing is that that kind of laptops aren’t too powerful. You could check more modern Thinkpads supported at Libreboot.

There are also modern laptops from: System76, framework and Purism. Some support freesoftware more than others, but it’s a good resource. For example not all System 76 laptops have Open Source Bios and EC, most of them disable the ME though.

The phone market is a bit different everything runs on SoC. So unless you go Purism phone or Pinephone. But they lack a lot. I would recommend using a custom de-googled Android like GrapheneOs, CalyxOS or LineageOS.

**Since I’ve been there, take everything with calm. Change bit by bit, and don’t try to force yourself. **

Note: There’s also Briar as a replacement for Signal, but the synching is between devices, so if the other is not connected… I prefer Simplex for now. I really like the way you share chats (since there are no IDs per se). I’ve been testing it out and it works well, you can even call and everything.

Note2: Matrix is a bit shady since the only Matrix instance (public) is Matrix.org and for now their whole selling point is based on that, but we’ll see (I use it too though).

Nah bro, device storage is cheap nowadays. CD readers/burners to USB are also cheap. Just buy music and put it on your device of choice.

POSIX tryanny? Lmao

I wanted to learn more about my system. But I felt like Debian and similar distributions where kind of hardcoded systems and that made the whole OS like a blackbox myth. I thought about Gentoo but I didn’t felt like having to track different configuration and building steps in my head in order to remember what system I had built. I do even struggle to remember how the fuck I did setup my WM in my Debian system.

Long time ago I also had discovered Guix from the FSF distro list (who hasn’t check that site in some spare time, right?). At the time it felt like the impossible distribution for me. A year and a half ago, with more knowledge in my bag I decided to build my own fully free software laptop by using an X220 Thinkpad (which has the old ME that can be totally disabled), since I wanted to go full tryhard I decided to pick what I felt it was the most obscure fully free software Distro at the time. After discovering what Guix was capable to do I remember thinking why no one has ever thought about this? This is genius! (I did not know about NixOs at the time)

Having the power of building a reproducible OS that is described with a recipe is amazing. How many times I went into rescue mode for touching things I shouldn’t with Debian? With guix I just rollback my system to a previous description and we are good to go. Guix also is pioneering the full source bootstrap concept which also sounds like something we should really have in our machines. Package descriptions that give you a recipe about how it should be built. And now you can even have a whole description of your home configuration environment! I won’t get lost when configuring WMs or my bash!

Conceptually it feels elegant and the correct way to build distributions and any software collection in general! Having both the build scripts and definitions written in Guile Scheme is much more convenient than having to embed DSL code like Nix approach. Lisp S-expresions literally feel built for that purpose.

It is still a young distro, documentation is lacking in some aspects but everybody in the community is passionate about.

Being a Debian guy for a long time, now Guix.

QT uses one or another, either GPLv3/LGPLv3/GPLv2 or privative. Poisoning open source? If you refer to the fact that they allow a closed source licence, yes I also dislike that. But how is GPLv3 poisoning anything? If you want to use and modify/contribute to the QT project then you have to maintain user freedoms unless you pay QT for their rights. In the end term, the user is always respected since contributions to base qt are always free software. With only a GPL licence then the developers would need to share source code for their distributions. The Multiple-Licence allows third party developers to gain “fully-paid-ownership” which allows them to close source it.

Also since QT it’s allowed to be shiped with LGPL third party devs can close source their parts of code that link against QT.

So it’s basically an interesting way of having a permissible licence while keeping the QT base fully libre.

Probably you refer to the availability that open source philosophy gives. Yeah, that is the principal difference between libre software and open software. Open software advocates for fully openness for the sake of the developers no matter what they want to make later with it, libre software advocates for the source code of the end user.

Because it’s Google

Yeah, it depends on the specific licence clauses. AOSP uses Apache Licence 2.0 which is normally regarded as a free software licence but it also could be regarded as Open software as by the OSS definition.

The problem with this licence is that it allows distribution of binaries based on the original source code without having to share the source or even changing the licence.

This means that Google could effectively take the entire (some part of Google Android is already close sources) AOSP in the current state (with the contributions of thousand of individual developers) and use it to start developing a close source Android OS project. Since Google are the main developers of Android and they could shift OG Android into a closed environment that could be no longer compatible with the old one. Google also is the main provider of security fixes. Since phone manufacturera want to able to run Google Android (stock Android) this could make old Android versions (before privatization) incompatible with phones.

For example let’s say that Google Android changes the main OS ABI or API. Then programs made for Google Android wouldn’t be compatible with other Android versions.

This would basically make users decide or you stay with Google Android (close sourced) and you trust use because “do no evil ;)”. Or you stay with your free software versions of Android that are no longer compatible with current Android programs basically forcing you to have an OS that’s not able to run “common” programs, basically isolating you from the mainstream smart phone use cases like having banking apps, mainstream chat apps, etc.

My bad for no specifying I didn’t use a very specific naming indeed. Normally Open Source it’s used for source code that’s not copylefted or copylefted software that does not defend user freedom (Although Open Source OSS does not say that, indeed GPL by the OSS definition is open source software). On the other hand Free software is commonly used for GPL like software (although most of the so called open source software could also be named free software). Also free software does not refer to “gratis” software. For a better explanation you can check this and this.

Anyways what I wanted to point out is that software that protects user freedoms and is copylefted (like GPL) protect users because the source code is protected from being closed if it is distributed.

On the other hand some open source software (open as open access), like ASOP, give open access without any protection for the user freedoms. For example the BSD-3-Clause.

I prefer to use the term Free Software instead of Open Software, because it points out that the whole meaning behind the licence is to maintain source code freedoms. On the other hand Open software seems to defend the fact that the source code is open but not its freedoms.

Both OSS Open source and FSF Free software definition refer to mostly the same set of licences, which in order to distinguish you would need to check the particular details like copyleft, etc.

I mean open source is that. The only reason open source exist is to be able to close some parts of its source (i.e. compatibility with privative software). Google promoted open source because it allowed them to close it whenever they want it. The Trojan Horse was always there, at plain sight.

That’s why it’s important to distinguish free software from open software. In most cases open source is just a label that companies can use to look friendlier.

I just hope that this time we go Free Software and not committing the mistake of going Open Source for a 3rd time (BSD/UNIX AT&T; Android/Google). Unless we want to fall with the same stone yet once more.

Android going Open Source allowed Google to close Android once it got mature. It’s a Trojan Horse, yet people still go Open Source and then complain when some company closes their source.

Check h-node next time ;).

Guix should be lower since it has the Full Source Bootstrap project

What’s the difference of this and WINE?

Guess i’m vegan now

GNU Taller. I heard it was working in Switzerland