mikegerwitz

15 ms·

91.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Free software activists and advocates are often accused of "user shaming". And they often do. Generally speaking, it's difficult to both consider and balance others opinions when you have a hard-line stance on something. I
92.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Are you referring to Magit? All code that is part of Emacs requires copyright assignment to the FSF; it's that simple. If Jonas Bernoulli can make that happen, then the issue is resolved. Jonas' original response: https:/&
93.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
It's not really something you can observe well from the outside, but in working with Richard on many things, I was surprised early on how much respect he gives to those he trusts, and how appreciative he is of help. So "servants&q
94.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> No one ever sees the history, honestly. Then you wouldn't see value in rewriting. Unless you're not reading the history because it's a pain to read because it's messy. I use `git blame` relatively frequently to und
95.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Software can be verified as such if backed by the proper hardware, but the hardware itself can't be verified in such a manner. You can't produce a signature of a hash of the atoms in a computer.
96.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Considering we're posting on a website called "Hacker News", I can only assume I'm not the only one deeply frustrated by that title, and the opening paragraph. There's the hacker vs. cracker debate, but this is just
97.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
You could have multiple independent inspectors do such certification provided state/federal laws are strong enough to discourage bad actors, but there's a bigger problem than that: how do you guarantee that the hardware is the sam
98.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Thanks. What's concerning to me is the section entitled "Uploading a previously packaged extension to the Chrome Web Store", which asks the user to place the private key into the package's root and include it in a zip.
99.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
This is why it is important to cryptographically sign releases. Browsers are a huge problem with this. All of the software I use is signed at some point in the chain (be it by the actual author or by the package manager, who'd better
100.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
This was on HN a while back, using Minetest for education: http://www.ocsmag.com/2016/04/04/mining-for-education/ My 5yo son has been playing Minetest for a number of months now and loves it. He has ask
101.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> So no, it's not about a specific situation. It's about the principle of the thing. That's fair. > i.e. if the FSF can be founded on the principle of freedom, why can't I claim to believe in the principle of freed
102.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> So how exactly, does assigning copyright to the FSF make anything better for anyone? It helps the FSF, sure. But everyone else (including the author) is negatively impacted by it. The author assigning the copyright benefits from GPL en
103.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
No, the FSF would have to.
104.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> I hope parent commentor clarifies this I can't edit my comment; sorry. I meant "your project's code".
105.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
To elaborate: the clause is actually designed precisely to prevent a hostile takeover from another entity; it's an important part of the contract. The clause states the conditions under which your code and program will be made availab
106.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> you're going to have to wait days/weeks as your copyright assignment papers make their way over snail-mail. Depends on the country. I signed mine with my GPG key in the United States and simply e-mailed it: https:/&#x2
107.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF sees fit. That's what copyright assignment means. The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell
108.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> It sounds like you have far too few developers to cover those systems. My company is similar, although with much fewer individual systems. The biggest problem we have is that we expect developers to be familiar with all of them and it&
109.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
tbh, I haven't had the will to job hunt, so I can't say for certain; I can only speculate based on data for my area. There are other positive factors that keep me at my job. What I maybe _should_ have said is that I may have been
110.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
There's an unfortunate difference between value at a company level and value at a team level---we have the hiring decisions as a team, and we won't hire without certain criteria we value. The other programmers didn't leave fo
111.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Very recent thread (ongoing) discussing this: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2017-07/msg00... Copyright assignments allow the FSF to enforce the GPL on Emacs.
112.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
Certain places place high value on domain-specific knowledge and trained employees. I work at a wholesale insurance company (middleman); we have over a hundred individual systems, some simple, some quite complex. Some of those systems can
113.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
I want to see native support for content-level cryptographic signatures in browsers. I also want it to be able to use a local GPG keyring, so I can validate against my chosen web of trust. JavaScript programs are just that---programs. Wh
114.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
I strongly support net neutrality, but this is dangerous. First: this is pushing the onus on the consumers. Not just pushing---forcing, even. My grandmother, my wife even, doesn't care about net neutrality---they want to use the Inte
115.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> alter package managers to allow installation of packages into a subtree of the user's home directory if the user is not root, etc. Guix and Nix. I haven't used Nix, but Guix even allows ad-hoc containers running only specifi
116.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
I can't say what the history specifically of checksums are off the top of my head, but error correction/detection dates back to at least the 1940s. Hamming(7,4) was created in 1950. Edit: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedi
117.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
> Which is why I'm very disappointed that distributions are not pushing reproducible builds as a top priority. If nothing else, this might make me switch to NixOS soon. Yes, it's unfortunately a step in the wrong direction, whi
118.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
The FTC complaint was for student privacy: https://www.eff.org/document/ftc-complaint-google-education Their student privacy campaign has been invaluable to me, and I have used numerous EFF resources in (ongoing) corre
119.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
It's extremely risky to put out a mass update, yes. But if it were a targeted attack against an individual, the risk is greatly reduced, especially if that individual won't think twice about it. With that said, you do have indivi
120.
by mikegerwitz 9y ago
"That would never happen" doesn't fly as a security proof.

More ›