Discussion April 2020

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

12 participants
7 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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Best video conferencing/distance learning tools?
by Carsten Agger 07 May '20

07 May '20

I'm thinking og buying a low-power-consumption but powerful computer to set up as a video conferencing/communication server at home as a contribution to a very apparent need and as an alternative to FaceTime, Zoom and whatever. Do people have experience with this? I've tried having a Jitsi Meet instance once and found it difficult to tweak for really good performance. I'm tempted to go with BigBlueButton - it seems to have everything and promises to be easy to install. Do anyone have experience running these things for practical use? Best, Carsten

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Smartphone as Webcam with Free Software?
by Bernhard E. Reiter 04 May '20

04 May '20

Hello, with webcams being hard to come by right now, and many people having smartphone or even lying around old one. Does somebody know how to use an android smartphone as webcam with Free Software? On F-droid I've found https://f-droid.org/de/packages/pl.hypeapp.endoscope/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.majorkernelpanic.spydroid/ https://f-droid.org/de/packages/com.dngames.mobilewebcam/ they are all a few years old and all offer wifi, but non of them an encrypted stream. And I don't know how to couple something that I can receive with vlc or so from those app, to the incomung video system my a GNU/Linux system. And no USB solution on sight? Has somebody seen better instructions for making this work? Best Regards, Bernhard -- FSFE -- Founding Member Support our work for Free Software: blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard https://fsfe.org/donate | contribute

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COVID19-Tracing/-Tracking App in Singapore under GPL-3.0
by Jan Wey. 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

I was made aware of this just 5 minutes ago. Sorry, if this was already mentioned on this ML in the past few days. Singapore decided to release their Tracing-App under GPL-3.0 [0], which obviously would establish better trust and would benefit other countries and regions as well, as the software (or parts of it) could be re-used, being in line with PMPC[1] as well as the FSFE's call to release any COVID19 Tracking App under a Free Software License. Kind regards and stay healthy, Jan [0] https://github.com/opentrace-community [1] https://publiccode.eu/ [2] https://fsfe.org/news/2020/news-20200402-02.html -- Jan Weymeirsch (former intern) passionate european & FOSS enthusiast Encrypt your mail! http://jan.weymeirs.ch/gpg

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COVID-19 Hackathons: Only Free Software creates global solutions
by Alexander Sander 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

Hi all, we need your help! Currently we see a lot of hackathons to find tools that help tackle the crisis of pandemic COVID-19. More and more governments and administrations are hosting or funding such hackathons. To make sure that the results of these hackathons can be used globally and adapted locally - that the software can be used, studied, shared and improved everywhere - the FSFE asks to publish the outcomes under a Free Software licence. Breaking the chain of COVID-19 infections and alleviating its dramatic impacts are of top priority within our societies. Software is inherently connected to achieve these goals, from 3D printing ventilators to tracking potential outbreaks or organising solidarity within communities. During the last weeks we have seen virtual hackathons being organised to help find and fund solutions that tackle the COVID-19 crisis. For the time being only some of them are published under a Free Software licence, also called Open Source Software or Libre Software licence, meaning that these solutions can be used, studied, shared and improved by everyone around the world. Meanwhile, more and more European governments and administrations are hosting virtual hackathons to help develop new tools. While some of them are explicitly supporting Free Software solutions only, like the WirVsVirus [1] hackathon others are not mentioning their licence at all - like EUvsVirus [2] initiated by the European Commission or Global Hack [3], funded by StartUpEU, making it difficult or impossible to reuse the software in other parts of the world. In a time when humanity needs to work together to find solutions for a crisis, we cannot afford to reinvent the wheel again and again for software that helps us tackle the spread of COVID-19. Global problems need global solutions! It is Free Software that enables global cooperation for code development. Any proprietary solution will inevitably lead to countless isolated solutions and waste energy and time which we as humanity cannot afford in such a critical situation. Besides global cooperation, Free Software licences allow sharing of code in any jurisdiction. Solutions developed in one country can be reused and adapted in another one. International development agencies and humanitarian movements can help to contain the spread of COVID-19 in any country around the world with the availability of Free Software solutions. Already before this crisis hundreds of organisations and tens of thousands of people demanded that publicly financed software developed for the public sector must be made publicly available under Free Software licences [4]. It is now even more important than ever before to tackle this crisis. == Get involved == If you want to help humanity to benefit from Free Software, you can help gather more Hackathons on our dedicated wiki page. [6] To make sure that the results of these hackathons can be used globally and adapted locally - that the software can be used, studied, shared and improved everywhere - the FSFE asks you to get in contact with organisers of hackathons and demand to publish the outcomes under a Free Software licence. [1] https://wirvsvirushackathon.org/international/ [2] https://euvsvirus.org/ [3] https://theglobalhack.com/ [4] https://publiccode.eu/ [5] https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Hackathons4Freedom [6] https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Hackathons4Freedom Online Version: https://fsfe.org/news/2020/news-20200408-01.html Best Alex -- Alexander Sander - EU Public Policy Programme Manager Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-157 923 472 12 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join)

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Is there any organisation like this in Europe?
by V F 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

https://itdrc.org The Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC) was founded in 2008 to provide communities with the technical resources necessary to continue operations and begin recovery after a disaster. We harness the collective resources of the technology community to provide no cost Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) solutions that connect survivors and responders in crisis.

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Wiki page about Free Software for remote working
by Erik Albers 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Hi all, last week some people created the a FSFE-wiki page about Free Software solutions for remote working. I think it has grown quite cool and gives a good overview. What do you think? Is it good? Is there missing something essential? https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/FreeSoftware4RemoteWorking Best, Erik -- No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software Erik Albers | Programme Manager & Communication | FSFE OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net

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Discussion April 2020