3 ms·

that is why i use Free Software and Open Source applications. quibbling about this detail (not your comment but the discussion as a whole) is not going to chang

by em-bee 2y ago

that is why i use Free Software and Open Source applications. quibbling about this detail (not your comment but the discussion as a whole) is not going to change the fact that only FOSS lets us own our computers ourselves.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
Free software is a mirage. It's an illusion. I am committed to developing all of my projects as AGPLv3 free software. However, the fact that I even get to do this at all is something of a miracle. Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action. It heavily contributed to the democratization of cryptography. The publication of PGP source code as a book defeated the US government's attempt to keep the cryptography to itself. Someone writes a little software called bittorrent and it threatens to wipe out entire industries, wipe out entire classes of business model. Somebody invents a bitcoin thing and now US presidential candidates speak of strategic bitcoin reserves. Somebody invents stable diffusion... We're all living to see the aftermath of that. It's hard to describe just how powerful and subversive computers are. Computers can literally reshape society. It's all enabled by free computers. General purpose processors which run the code you input into them, no questions asked. And what we are witnessing here is the destruction of those free computers. For the sake of corporate interests. The computer is not free anymore. It only runs the code the corporation allows it to run. Because if it could run the set of all programs, it means it could run code that negatively impacts the corporation's profits. Their solution is to allow execution of the programs the corporations like and nothing else. Could be worse I guess. It might have been the government making that decision. Perhaps one day it will be. Software freedom is not the same thing as computing freedom. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers. Focusing on free software as a solution to this is missing the forest for the trees. There is no point whatsoever to free software which we can't run, free software which can't interface with the services we need, free software which gets us ostracized. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. Our own free hardware designs, one hundred percent free from their control, fabricated by ourselves. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law. It should be illegal for them to lock our computers down. It should be illegal for them to refuse to interoperate with non-locked down computers. Anything short of this means free software has no future.
- em-bee 2y ago
  Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? this argument gets repeated over and over, and i really hate it. making software is not building a house or a bridge. and i can build my own house. i just need to follow some rules. i can also construct my own car from scratch. again, just need to follow some rules and pass a few tests to see if the car is considered streetworthy. otherwise i can still use it on my private property as much as i want. same goes for software. if a company uses my software in a dangerous setting, (like someone using my unlicensed car on a public road) it is their problem not mine. Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action sorry, what?? i have never heard something so preposterous. is DIY anything at home subversive too? The computer is not free anymore yet at the same time we are reaching the capacity to build our own computers from scratch. and if the trend continues, we will have to. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers so far general purpose devices are still free enough to be usable. but i agree with your point. see above. eventually we may just as well have to build our own computers. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services we can build our own networks too. and we are. see freifunk and other projects. services is another issue, but so far most of those still allow offline solutions, or i will be able to use them with an isolated device independent from my home built general purpose computer. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. it's already happening. and it will grow as the cost for that goes down. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law now that is a completely different argument, but also one i agree with. Anything short of this means free software has no future i would not go that far yet, but depending on how you look at it and how things develop you may be right, or not. i hope not.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    > sorry, what?? i have never heard something so preposterous. It's not preposterous at all. It's the truth. Computers are world-changing technology. Citizens having access to unrestricted computers is something corporations and governments cannot and will not tolerate. Google hates it so much they added hardware remote attestation to Android devices. Computer freedom means we can subvert their silly "integrity checks" and do whatever we want. It means we can run uBlock Origin to kill their advertising and run things like yt-dlp to download their content and keep it forever. They won't tolerate that. > so far general purpose devices are still free enough to be usable. Not according to the FSF. You simply cannot find a computer today that does not require you to load some signed proprietary blob onto some chip somewhere. For that you need a CPU that must be like 20 years old by now. We do not drive our computers anymore. The entire operating system turned into the "user OS" that gets sandboxed away from the real action. It's just user code talking to the proprietary code via some kind of hardware API. https://youtu.be/36myc8wQhLo https://youtu.be/36myc8wQhLo Just look at the sad state of our operating systems. Safely tucked away into some corner, completely oblivious to all the other computers around it. All that hardware running signed proprietary code you cannot control or modify. How did things get like this? I've pretty much given up on that. By this point I just want IOMMUs so I can isolate all those other computers and try to limit the access they have to what's supposed to be my system. I think it's pretty screwed up that my power as the owner of the machine has been reduced to this. > we can build our own networks too You cannot. Not successfully. If you try, you'll find that anti-money laundering laws, know your customer laws, anti-terrorism laws, all sorts of laws will compel you to become what you sought to avoid in the first place. The government got around limitations on surveillance by privatizing it. They will make you surveil in its stead, and if you fail to do so they will blame you for anything wrong that happens in your network. Either you surveil and rat out your users, or you go to jail instead of them. > it's already happening. and it will grow as the cost for that goes down. I hope you're right. I really do.

by em-bee 2y ago

matheusmoreira 2y ago

Free software is a mirage. It's an illusion. I am committed to developing all of my projects as AGPLv3 free software. However, the fact that I even get to do this at all is something of a miracle. Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action. It heavily contributed to the democratization of cryptography. The publication of PGP source code as a book defeated the US government's attempt to keep the cryptography to itself. Someone writes a little software called bittorrent and it threatens to wipe out entire industries, wipe out entire classes of business model. Somebody invents a bitcoin thing and now US presidential candidates speak of strategic bitcoin reserves. Somebody invents stable diffusion... We're all living to see the aftermath of that. It's hard to describe just how powerful and subversive computers are. Computers can literally reshape society. It's all enabled by free computers. General purpose processors which run the code you input into them, no questions asked. And what we are witnessing here is the destruction of those free computers. For the sake of corporate interests. The computer is not free anymore. It only runs the code the corporation allows it to run. Because if it could run the set of all programs, it means it could run code that negatively impacts the corporation's profits. Their solution is to allow execution of the programs the corporations like and nothing else. Could be worse I guess. It might have been the government making that decision. Perhaps one day it will be. Software freedom is not the same thing as computing freedom. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers. Focusing on free software as a solution to this is missing the forest for the trees. There is no point whatsoever to free software which we can't run, free software which can't interface with the services we need, free software which gets us ostracized. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. Our own free hardware designs, one hundred percent free from their control, fabricated by ourselves. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law. It should be illegal for them to lock our computers down. It should be illegal for them to refuse to interoperate with non-locked down computers. Anything short of this means free software has no future.

em-bee 2y ago
Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? this argument gets repeated over and over, and i really hate it. making software is not building a house or a bridge. and i can build my own house. i just need to follow some rules. i can also construct my own car from scratch. again, just need to follow some rules and pass a few tests to see if the car is considered streetworthy. otherwise i can still use it on my private property as much as i want. same goes for software. if a company uses my software in a dangerous setting, (like someone using my unlicensed car on a public road) it is their problem not mine. Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action sorry, what?? i have never heard something so preposterous. is DIY anything at home subversive too? The computer is not free anymore yet at the same time we are reaching the capacity to build our own computers from scratch. and if the trend continues, we will have to. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers so far general purpose devices are still free enough to be usable. but i agree with your point. see above. eventually we may just as well have to build our own computers. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services we can build our own networks too. and we are. see freifunk and other projects. services is another issue, but so far most of those still allow offline solutions, or i will be able to use them with an isolated device independent from my home built general purpose computer. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. it's already happening. and it will grow as the cost for that goes down. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law now that is a completely different argument, but also one i agree with. Anything short of this means free software has no future i would not go that far yet, but depending on how you look at it and how things develop you may be right, or not. i hope not.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  > sorry, what?? i have never heard something so preposterous. It's not preposterous at all. It's the truth. Computers are world-changing technology. Citizens having access to unrestricted computers is something corporations and governments cannot and will not tolerate. Google hates it so much they added hardware remote attestation to Android devices. Computer freedom means we can subvert their silly "integrity checks" and do whatever we want. It means we can run uBlock Origin to kill their advertising and run things like yt-dlp to download their content and keep it forever. They won't tolerate that. > so far general purpose devices are still free enough to be usable. Not according to the FSF. You simply cannot find a computer today that does not require you to load some signed proprietary blob onto some chip somewhere. For that you need a CPU that must be like 20 years old by now. We do not drive our computers anymore. The entire operating system turned into the "user OS" that gets sandboxed away from the real action. It's just user code talking to the proprietary code via some kind of hardware API. https://youtu.be/36myc8wQhLo https://youtu.be/36myc8wQhLo Just look at the sad state of our operating systems. Safely tucked away into some corner, completely oblivious to all the other computers around it. All that hardware running signed proprietary code you cannot control or modify. How did things get like this? I've pretty much given up on that. By this point I just want IOMMUs so I can isolate all those other computers and try to limit the access they have to what's supposed to be my system. I think it's pretty screwed up that my power as the owner of the machine has been reduced to this. > we can build our own networks too You cannot. Not successfully. If you try, you'll find that anti-money laundering laws, know your customer laws, anti-terrorism laws, all sorts of laws will compel you to become what you sought to avoid in the first place. The government got around limitations on surveillance by privatizing it. They will make you surveil in its stead, and if you fail to do so they will blame you for anything wrong that happens in your network. Either you surveil and rat out your users, or you go to jail instead of them. > it's already happening. and it will grow as the cost for that goes down. I hope you're right. I really do.