Discussion February 2020

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

6 participants
6 discussions

Mozilla: "We’re taking a break from Facebook"
by Jonke Suhr 04 Oct '21

04 Oct '21

Hey all, irregardless of the split in our community between privacy pragmatists and privacy absolutists, I think we should take note of this step Mozilla has taken, as I believe FSFE still has a Facebook page (last active on September 21st as far as I can ascertain). > Dear global community we’ve had the opportunity to interact with over the past several years here: > > We’re taking a break from Facebook. > > At Mozilla we champion platforms and technologies that are good for the web and good for the people that use it. > We stand up for transparency and user control because they make the web healthier for us all. > > That’s why we are pressing pause on any Facebook activity. Mark Zuckerberg has just promised to improve Facebook’s settings and make them more protective, which is a start! Please do that! But we can’t help but think we’ve heard it before, so we’re still going to wait and see what materializes before we resume spending our ad dollars or time here. > > IN THE MEANTIME: > If you need support for Firefox or want to tweet at us, you can find us here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/ > and https://twitter.com/mozilla (Non-tracked link to the source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180323091845/https://de-de.facebook.com/mozil…) What do you guys think? Best regards, Jonke

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Voting and Free Software
by Matthias Kirschner 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

There is an interesting article on LWN about Free Software and voting: https://lwn.net/Articles/797557/ Several commenters argued that electronic voting itself should not be done. E.g. one of the first commenters (Roberto) wrote that: It is indeed pretty sad to see that in 2019 we still need to explain, again and again, why electronic voting is not feasible. I have been involved in public debate about electronic voting since the early 2000, when it was unfortunately introduced in France. Here is a recent summary of the key points, in English, that should make a nice reading. http://www.dicosmo.org/MyOpinions/index.php?post/2016/02/25/A-rule-of-thumb… Do you agree with this criticism or what do you think about that topic? Best regards, Matthias PS: Btw. there was also a good episode of John Oliver explaining this to a broader audience: $youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEuG_ekNT0 -- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 |(fsfe.org/support) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Weblog k7r.eu/blog.html

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Collect old devices?
by Sascha Brawer 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

Does the FSFE accept donations of old devices, to be used as test hardware for projects such as Replicant, OpenWrt, Plasma Mobile, postmarketOS, etc.? Just a thought... perhaps the FSFE could collect devices and forward them to developers who’d use them for development/testing? — Sascha

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Going beyond advocacy
by Paul Boddie 13 Feb '20

13 Feb '20

Hello, Last summer, there was a discussion on this list about "Strategy and serendipity" to which I contributed the following remarks: > Maybe the role of the FSFE is to go beyond advocacy and help knock some > stubborn heads together, to eliminate people's parochial and needlessly > competitive attitudes, to actually persuade people to commit to realising an > actual vision in a genuinely serious way, perhaps to secure resources to > allow this to happen. Urging people to use Free Software products that > don't exist just won't do the job. Recently, in the "suggestions/request for fsfe" discussion, it was pointed out that people want to use Free Software solutions but have no clear course of action they can take. And more recently still, I encountered another kind of situation that perhaps highlights the deficiencies of merely advocating for something without anything being organised to make that advocacy meaningful. As luck would have it, it has something to do with arguably one of the more successful and engaging campaigns that the FSFE has run: the PDFreaders campaign [1] requesting that public institutions cease advertising proprietary PDF-reading software (particularly that of a single vendor), emphasise the standardised nature of the PDF format, and acknowledge the existence of Free Software solutions. (One can imagine taking elements of such a campaign in other directions. For instance, public broadcasters like the BBC systematically promote proprietary social networking platforms whose harmful social effects go far beyond those caused by the promotion of proprietary PDF reader applications. Just as one might wonder whether Adobe had somehow procured favours from public institutions, so might we wonder what bargains have been made between taxpayer-funded media organisations and multi-billion-dollar corporations.) But it is the aspect of promoting Free Software solutions in a campaign that becomes troublesome, particularly if those solutions do not manage to address end-user needs. It was precisely this problem that I encountered recently. Having been sent a PDF form that needed completing, I rediscovered the apparent lack of support in Free Software applications for performing this task. Now, I may have mentioned this before in another context, that being a discussion about an alternative microkernel-based foundation for GNU Hurd, which I think most people would agree is quite a different area from PDF application software. But ignoring the rather out-of-place nature of the encouragement from an influential figure of the Free Software movement [2], a need for improved PDF document handling in Free Software is clearly recognised. Yet the situation is still confused and rather unsatisfactory: https://askubuntu.com/questions/29230/is-there-software-that-can-fill-pdf-f… While there may have been other factors involved in my own recent experiences, such as whether such documents would even be communicated securely, I ended up with the feeling that it would not be possible to perform an important task using Free Software. No amount of advocacy would remedy this situation. I imagine that some people would rather let "the market" figure out how Free Software products can be improved, that people motivated by a "business case" would see to it that such improvements are made. Unfortunately, the accompanying "business model" usually ends up taking the software proprietary, pursuing dubious monetisation strategies, or looking after niche groups of customers. What really needs to happen is that a coherent vision be articulated and then all necessary action pursued to realise it. If people are supposed to be able to use Free Software for their needs - interacting with PDF documents, in this particular case - then organisations must go beyond advocacy and actually facilitate the development of the features that are part of that vision. That may well involve the financing or sponsorship of developers, rather than "inspiring volunteers" or whatever the mantra - ostensibly empowering creativity, actually perpetuating exploitation - tends to be. So, while the PDFreaders campaign was helpful in raising awareness of Free Software and competition issues, as well as having useful side-effects in terms of liberating some PDF handling software, it also needed to be accompanied by initiatives to sustain Free PDF software development. Without such accompanying initiatives, we find ourselves confronting the same situations over and over again, always on the defensive and never really having something compelling to offer to those willing to try something new (or, for that matter, those of us who have supported Free Software all along). Well, that was probably far too many words stating the obvious, but I suppose the message will eventually sink in. Paul [1] https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html [2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/l4-hurd/2018-05/msg00001.html

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Podcast about mobile phone communication with Harald Welte
by Matthias Kirschner 11 Feb '20

11 Feb '20

Hello all, In this third episode of our software freedom podcast we speak with our guest is Harald Welte about mobile phone communication and the general status of Free Software in this area: https://fsfe.org/news/podcast/episode-3.en.html Best regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 |(fsfe.org/support) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Weblog k7r.eu/blog.html

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suggestions/request for fsfe
by V F 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Dear all (mainly FSFE team), First wish you all a new year and appreciate your solid work. My email may look a bit annoying but please think it as a request (not a native english person). Over the holidays I (being the crazy family geek) speaks about adblock (µblock origin) and many in family are bored but a bit thinking it is a good idea. With many smartphone + TVs - I sent (whatsapp) links to these people but realized soon everyone ignore this as running pi-hole is too much work. No one wants to touch router if it f**** up. After Googleing a bit I found there are few pi-hole open to everyone to use. https://pi-dns.com https://public-pihole.com/ I am not an expert in network (actually a zoologist) things but I was wondering why not FSFE build a open pihole server? Instead of trusting some people on the internet (there are warnings about using someones dns server???) FSFE is a trustable place. This finally rounds up studies that say *people* do *care* about privacy but to enable this is too much effort. (other than buying Apple devices - at least people think) Would it not be better FSFE does *real* practical help to world? Every year here in our chapter we distribute flyers but many go to bin. Why? Not easy to do it? Want to avoid google search but others are not good (enough)? Want to google docs - no easy docs in phone! Want to stop MS-office - forced by enterprise/job! Want to stop Gmaps but ... Are there any legal reasons FSFE does not want to get into adblocking? Or is it money? Educating public/law makers is good intension - but at the end of the day people need practical help. Or finally I found many end up buying Apple devices - assuming they automagically get privacy - despite using Gmaps, or Google search etc. How long can people be tracked (especially our friends) until law changes or helps. I feel worry because some smartTVs are traking with even mic. *So people really want to do change but it is help are presented in a easy way. * What about a simple VPN service or pihole type adblock. Every small thing will help the innocent citizen? Sorry if my email was rude... Wish you a good start for wonderful year.

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Discussion February 2020