jxself.org
Previous Articles:
Worldwide Public Domain Dedication (WPDD)
Back in May 2022 a conversation in the FSF's IRC channel on Libera.Chat got me thinking that that there may be a benefit to having a version of CC0 that does address patents.
Why VHS tapes are better than DVDs and Blu-Ray
Following up on Why Dial-Up Internet Is Better it seemd appropriate for some satire on DVD and Blu-ray DRM, UOP, etc.
GNU Christmas
(To the tune of White Christmas by Bing Crosby)
The Future Of 32-bit Support
I've received some questions about the future of my 32-bit x86
kernel builds so I thought I'd answer by putting out something
public.
Transcending Moore's Law
When computer scientist Gordon Moore first formulated his thesis
on the exponentially growing speed and power of integrated circuits
in 1965, no one at the time could have predicted the prescience of
his observations. Moore was the first to articulate the remarkable
degree of consistency in the rate at which transistor density was
increasing, with the number of transistors able to fit onto a single
integrated circuit approximately doubling every 2 years. More than
any other factor, it is this rate of exponential growth in the field
of microprocessors that has fueled the rise of electronics. With the
modern world now fully immersed in digital technology, demand for
ever more powerful computing hardware shows no sign of abating.
"Tivoization" and Your Right to Install Under Copyleft
Two schools of thought about the purpose of copyleft have been
at odds for some time. Simply put, the question is: are copyleft
licenses designed primarily to protect the rights of large
companies that produce electronics and software products, or is
copyleft designed primarily to protect individual users' rights to
improve, modify, repair, and reinstall their software?
The Greatest Obstacles to Establishing a Successful Colony on Mars
The increasing privatization of space travel has brought
renewed interest in the potential for crewed spaceflights to the
moon and Mars, with private ventures such as SpaceX and Amazon's
Blue Origin setting their sights on some of the most ambitious
spacefaring missions humanity has yet attempted. Many leaders in
the field of aeronautics have expressed a desire to not merely
land on the surface of Mars, but to establish a permanent human
presence on the Martian surface.
Stay The Course
I have found that I really agree with the ethical and social
issues that RMS brings up in his talks about free software.
UEFI Secure Boot
My kernel packages for 32- and 64-bit x86 now support UEFI
Secure Boot.
Sierra One
I've published a science fiction flash fiction story at https://jxself.org/git/?p=sierraone.git.
It is, of course, freely licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later.
Linux-libre on RISC-V
I've started building Linux-libre kernel packages for RISC-V in
the freesh repository, starting with version 4.19.1.
Who's afraid of Spectre & Meltdown?
Back when I was young, people were taught not to install or run
software from untrusted parties, very much like not to accept
candy from strangers, or not to let the Big Bad Wolf in.
Prevention is better than cure. Then came along application macros
and the World Wide Web of Execution, that embed software in data
files and web pages, respectively, so that it is automatically
executed when viewing the file or the web page. Such automatic
execution of untrusted software paved the way for plenty of
malicious software, from traditional trojan horses, that, standing
as desirable programs or data files, contain executable code that
grants malicious third parties control over the computer, to
stealthy cryptocoin miners in web pages, that spend users' compute
power to surreptitiously transfer wealth to third parties.
Evacuating The Titanic
"CQD CQD SOS Titanic Position 41.44 N 50.24 W. Require
immediate assistance. Come at once. We struck an iceberg.
Sinking."
It's one of the distress calls sent by the Titanic in the early
hours of April 15, 1912. Titanic was the largest ship in the world at
the time, and seems an apt analogy to Intel's x86 processors.
How Star Trek Advanced the Cause of Gender Equality
The Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s started a change in
society. Prior to that time, women were expected to get married, tend
to the house, and take care of the kids. Women with careers were few
and far between. Even fewer could expect to have a position of
authority in what was considered to be a man's world. While some
women worked low level jobs due to financial problems at home, the
idea of a woman pursuing a profession was generally scoffed at and
dismissed. (Sadly, this expectation persisted long after the 1960s
and is still prevalent in some places today.)
Introducing Extended-Term Support
I began maintaining my APT repository for Linux-libre, graciously hosted by the Free Software Foundation Latin America, in September 2011.
At
first the repository only provided Short-Term Support (STS) kernels,
focusing on always having the latest version. These were only
supported for 2-3 months at a time.
Introducing Linux-libre-firmware
Version 4.14 of the kernel named Linux was released today. One of
the changes is the removal of the in-kernel firmware subtree. This,
sadly, doesn't get rid of all of the proprietary software inside the
kernel but that wasn't really their goal anyway. It's really just a
cleaning up of something that wasn't being used anymore.
Technology That Empowers Me
Digital technology seems to be everywhere. In the past, someone
might go to a library and check out a book to read. No one else could
check out that copy until it was returned. With digital technology
that's no longer an issue - there can be an inifinite number of copies
- enough for everyone to read - without waiting for a copy to be
returned.
Commerical Use
Someone recently asked me "in what way the freedoms of the
readers/spectators/... of an artistic work are harmed if that work
cannot be commercially used?" This person is already supportive
of free software. I decided to put my response here.
Is Secrecy Impossible With The Internet?
Occasionally, entire print runs of publications, often thousands of
copies, are recalled from bookstores before the public can get their
hands on them. Sometimes the publishers do the recall after an
eleventh hour threat of legal action by a party citing potential
injury from alleged libelous or illegal content. Occasionally a
government agency prevents publication, claiming some breach of
secrecy or espionage laws. A famous example of this was the case in
England in the 1980's of the book Spycatcher by former MI5
secret service officer Peter Wright.
The GFDL
I've previously written about things that don't allow modification
(aka "derivative works".) This can be
implemented in various ways, among any license. One of them that has
one particular implementation of this is the GNU Free Documentation
License ("GFDL"), which calls them Invariant Sections. These sections
can't be modified (or even removed.)
It's Not Copyleft
Someone recently pointed me to Jonathan Riddell's blog post " In
Defence for Permissive Licences; KDE licence policy update."
My Mother Is On Facebook
This is not a happy time: My mother got her own Facebook account.
I'm not on Facebook. Or am I? I can just imagine what she might be
posting there. Information about her family, including tagging people
such as myself in pictures. As a result I'm not on Facebook and yet I
end up in Facebook anyway.
Why Dial-Up Internet Is Better
Dial-up is considered a very obsolete and rather unfavorable way to
connect to the internet simply due to its poor connection speed. Why
would anybody in their right mind choose dial-up when cable, DSL, and
other much faster internet connections are available? Not to mention
there were no computers produced in the last number of years with
dial-up modems in them. The modem issue is an easy fix: you can get an
external USB dial-up modem from ThinkPenguin.
There's also the problem of needing a landline phone connection -
another thing that's going the way of the dinosaur as more people
ditch wired phones in favor of cell phones. But even then, just having
a landline doesn't cost very much per month either, even if you choose
not to have a phone. That's the benefit of outdated
technology/communication: it's cheap!
Supporting Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom
Conservancy is trying to change to an individual-supported,
instead of corproate-supported, model and is doing a fundraising campaign
to that end. I'm a Supporter of them and wanted to say why.
To Advance Free Software, Learn To Argue
I am sometimes asked how to convince somone to use free
software. This article comes at the request of someone on how to do
that well. (So yes - I do accept requests on topics. Please feel free
to contact me if you'd like to see something.) Doing that is not
always easy, and the best method and stragegy varies from case to case
but one thing that I think will always help is learning to argue.
Indeed, those that see me on IRC will sometimes see me trying to make
a good argument for a particular thing.
Will you help us save WiFi?
or as long as the libreCMC and LibreWRT projects have existed, their
core focus has been to bring Free Software to embedded devices, some
of which have WiFi chipsets. While the project(s) core goals have not
changed very much over the last few years, the landscape of WiFi
enabled devices has exploded.
VLC, VP9, Opus And WebVTT
I've
begun maintaining an APT repository for VLC.
No Derivative Works
A
discussion on IRC inspired me to write about the problems with
licenses that do not allow derivative works. The primary reason for
allowing derivative works is because creative works contribute to our
shared history and culture and rightly belong to the people of the
world once published. There's a whole separate argument to be made
there, which I won't do here. I'll just address the point that was
raised in support of not allowing derivative works: Avoiding
misrepresentation. The idea is that, if people can't change what you
wrote, they can't make it seem like you're saying something different.
This argument quickly falls apart when you examine it.
How Star Trek Addressed the Issue of Racism
At LibrePlanet 2015, I agreed with someone
by saying "Make it so." One of my friends pointed out, "Your Trekkie
is showing." I've enjoyed Star Trek ever since I first watched it, due
to the underlying messages. Disguised as a futuristic science fiction
series, the classic Star Trek series boldly explored the issues
prevalent in the 1960s. This included the most heated issue of the
time: racism.
Goodbye, Gitorious
I've been self-hosted since 1999, and always push that option when
talking to people. I didn't always follow my own advice though and
made an exception for public source code repos I put on Gitorious. The
announcement of Gitorious's demise motivated me to change that policy
so that the rug can't be pulled out from under me again. I spent some
time reviewing options and wanted to share my own decisions and
rationale.
Spyware: Unethical Business Practice
Advertising has come a long way. With the advent
of the internet, it became a big money maker. However, this has lead
to a sinister turn of events where advertisers track people's progress
across the internet in order to gain insight and make even better ads.
To some extent this information is obtained through the use of
spyware. It is common for people to be completely unaware that their
privacy is being violated.
Consistency
It's possible
you're going to hear some anti-GPL stuff. I urge you to ignore it.
Trademark Decisions
The United Stated Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) defines a
trademark as "words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that
distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by
others and to indicate the source of the goods." This sounds easy
enough but it can sometimes be difficult to identfy all of the
trademarks someone might have. McDonald's is a good example: Its first
trademark registration was in 1961 but their giant yellow "M" was not
registered as a trademark until 1968.
Supernova
It's been a few
months since the last time travel
expedition where I go dig up ancient game source code and then
pull it forward in time so it can be compiled and run on modern
systems, so I decided it was time for another.
Beyond The Titanic
I realized that I never made a blog post on this topic to share the work done on pulling a classic game forward into the modern world, so here it is.
Originally published about 30 years ago, Apogee
Software released the source code for Beyond The Titanic and a few
other titles under the GPL back in 2009 but they could only be run in
an emulator and couldn't be built from source on any modern system.
Skein
Here's an implementation
of version 1.3 of the Skein cryptographic hash function. (To aid in
pronunciation the name rhymes with rain and Spain.) It uses the reference
implementation provided by Bruce Schneier on his website.
Upcoming GPG Key Transition
At the beginning of September I introduced my
new GPG key and I've been slowly transitioning everything over to that
new key. Now it's time for my Linux-libre APT repository to make the
change.
Crowdfunding In Freedom
Crowdfunding has become extremely popular over the
last few years. I suspect that most people wanting to start a
crowdfunding campaign think choosing a crowdfunding platform is a
simple task and decide to go ahead with the well-known options such as
Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, RocketHub, Crowdfunder, Crowd Supply, etc. All
of these and many others cater to a broad range of projects.
Kickstarter is perhaps the most recognizable of all and many people
have run successful crowdfunding campaigns there for music albums,
independent films, charities, software and lots of other things.
How Crowdfunding Is Changing The World Of Publishing
The publishing world has
always been somewhat ruthless on the aspirations of first time authors
looking to get their first book or novel printed and onto the shelves
of bookstores. The increasing interest in celebrity penned
autobiographies and popular fiction has grown especially during these
uncertain economic times. The advent of self-publishing gives authors
the opportunity to put the publishing process into their own hands,
but can be costly not to mention the time needed to market the
finished book. However crowdfunding offers authors the opportunity to
raise funds to meet the costs of getting the books published and
enable effective marketing through the power of social media.
Introducing Non-PAE
I received a few requests to provide non-PAE kernels and I'm happy
to announce that they are now available. In case you don't know PAE is
a feature where 32-bit computers can access more than 4GB of memory.
Most modern CPUs support this but older computers don't necessarily do
and are incompatible with PAE-enabled kernels.
Trisquel Turns Ten
Although he tells me that he doesn't recall the exact date Rubén
Rodríguez started the Trisquel
GNU/Linux distribution in the Spring of 2004 which makes it ten
year old this year. I've been using it for about four of those years
now, when version 3.5 (codenamed Awen) was
released in 2010. Trisquel versions are named after Celtic gods.
The next release, version 7, is codenamed belenos after a Celtic sun god. A
shining release seems perfectly named to coincide with Trisquel's
tenth anniversary.
Kickin' It Up A Notch
I
predict that The Pirate Bay's announcement regarding their latest
project in development will change the way the war on sharing,
censorship, and surveillance is fought. Their new weapon won't end the
war, but it will force the enemy to abandon their traditional weapons.
Government censors, copyright maximalists, and the puppet ISPs that
collaborate with them will find it's going to be much more difficult
to restrict access to websites, stop people from sharing, and monitor
what they're up to.
Avoiding Surveillance
The NSA has been in the news a lot lately,
and for all the wrong reasons. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone
that all of this is happening. It's been coming for years now and
anyone had the ability to see it coming, if they were careful enough
to pay attention. The question now becomes how to deal with it. It's a
complex problem and, like many complex problems, requires a
multi-pronged effort to address it.
Debian Doubletalk
I
was recently re-reading the Debian Project's Social Contract. It seems
good, until you start thinking about it.
Cisco & H.264
Cisco's
announcement changes nothing about H.264. It's nothing more than a
desperate attempt at grabbing straws. H.264 still patent encumbered.
It's still problematic. Cisco doesn't even make an attempt to hide
that their motivation is nothing less than getting a patent-encumbered
codec selected for use in WebRTC. I urge everyone to ignore it and
continue pushing for codecs that are not encumbered with patent
problems.
Password Generator
A recent conversation
on identi.ca prompted me to share this. Instead of using a
password manager to store your passwords, this eliminates the need to
store passwords entirely.
New GPG Key
For various
reasons I have decided to retire my 1024D (SHA1) GPG keys. No attacks
are known on them, and they are not compromised in any way (if they
were, of course, I would immediately revoke them). Still, to be on the
safe side, I am transitioning to stronger RSA keys.
Stop The Hysteria
Back in December 2012, Richard Stallman wrote Ubuntu
Spyware: What to Do?. In it he criticized Canonical collecting
search queries from Ubuntu users. He rightly called that spyware.
Increased Compatibility
With the release of Linux-libre 3.4.58 and
3.10.7 I am pleased to announce increased compatibility for my APT
repository.
Digits
This is definitely a thinking person's game!
Distantly related to the game
Mastermind, you are given clues to help determine a random number
combination. The object of the game is to guess the solution in as few
tries as possible. Statistically, even when you are unlucky, the
solution can be derived in no more than seven guesses with the default
settings. You can also change the game settings for greater
difficulty.
Online Sharing: An Unstoppable Force
If numbers are to be believed,
millions of people share file with each other. Everyone's sharing
something these days, even the
FBI,
major record labels, the
U.S. government, the
Vatican, and even the
Canadian police and government. In fact, research published by
Jean-Paul Van Belle at the University of Cape Town, South Africa said
that only 11% of respondents claimed to have never engaged in sharing
with their friends. Even the RIAA admits there's an
ocean of sharing going on and there's no end in sight.
Grue Hunter
Grue Hunter
is a text adventure game written in Perl. You must make your way
through an underground cave system in search of the Grue. Can you
capture it and get out alive?
A Dystopic View Of The Future
Jeff was finishing up his undergraduate degree
in history at the University. It was difficult to obtain research
materials ever since the library closed. Chancellor Pankrat's
declaration that all published works were to forever exist only in
digital form and also be placed under perpetual and draconian
copyright restrictions led to the systematic closing of all lending
libraries, music conservatories, and bookbinding factories. Pankrat
was not a huge fan of history in general, unless it was his private
version of it. Whether they were books, music, movies or games, no one
could access them unless they were government sanctioned digital
copies encrypted for use with the Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM) system that was also mandated to be present on every electronic
device used by the public. Pankrat used to work for the largest
electronic book publisher in the world. This DRM system, not
coincidentally, was developed by that company.
Introducing Long-Term Support
I began maintaining an APT
repository for Linux-libre, graciously hosted by the Free Software Foundation Latin
America, in September 2011.
COBOL Will Live Forever
The
COBOL programming language is one of the oldest computer languages in
existence, yet it's still widely used in extremely significant ways:
The average person on the street has nearly a hundred interactions per
week with things running COBOL. Even the New York Stock Exchange
currently uses numerous mainframe computers running COBOL programs
(although various efforts are presently underway to reduce that); and
the number of daily COBOL transactions made around the world each day
is actually greater than the number of hits all of the websites on the
Internet receive.
Tracking User Logins
usertracker.pl scans specified log files for information about
logged-in users and adds the list of logged users to a file. I had a
need to get this information for a system I was working on, couldn't
find a program that worked exactly like I wanted, and came to the
conclusion that it had to be made. I'm publishing it here just in case
it might be helpful to someone else some day.
How I Learned About Free Software
I've been using computers my entire life. My
earliest memory of them involves a TRS-80 Model III while I was in
either the second or third grade. I remember that it had an orange
reset button in the upper right corner of the keyboard and that the
teacher had told us to never press it. I sometimes joked with my
classmates about pressing it but never did. Someone eventually did
though.
Your own privacy-aware, personally controlled server, part five
Based on the
previous parts I'm going to assume that you have the hardware you want
to use for your server, have registered a domain name that is safe
from being be seized, know whether your ISP has assigned you a static
or dynamic IP address, and that if you're behind some type of device
that hands out private IP addresses to the computers in your home, you
have found the manual for your router so as to figure out how to
configure it to assign a static private IP address to your server and
open any ports htat may be needed.
Outsourcing Your GPL Obligations
Version 3 of the GNU General Public License
updated a free software license that was, at that point, sixteen years
old since version 2 and 18 years since version 1.
The Importance Of Free Firmware
I received a request to write something about why
you should use free firmware (so yes — I do accept requests for
topics) but firmware is really just software and the arguments I was
going to make apply equally to all software. However, for the purposes
of this article, I will focus on software in the form of firmware.
Your own privacy-aware, personally controlled server, part four
This is part four
of a series. I'm going to assume that you've already the previous
parts. If not they're linked to from the
archive. I'll continue with the same theme as last time: Your
internet connection.
Your own privacy-aware, personally controlled server, part three
This is part
three of a series. I'm going to assume that you've already read the first and second parts. The next part to
consider is your connection to the internet.
What Can Be Copyrighted and What Can't
I've written about copyright before explaining how, in
its default state, it's a restriction on society. In this I intend to
discuss the scope of copyright restrictions.
The Story Of An Ebook Reader
I recently learned of someone selling their
ebook reader that ran proprietary software.
The DMCA
Imagine a book
store that sells you a book, but it's scrambled and cannot be read.
Descrambling is a prerequisite to reading, but imagine there's a law
making it illegal to do that.
Project Glass
Google
recently revealed its plan to develop Internet-connected eyeglasses
that would combine normal vision with informational overlays. It has
named the effort "Project Glass" and built a prototype.
DRM And Free Expression
While not the only reason the former Soviet Union fell apart, samizdat certainly played a large role in this.
Citizens copied printed works of dissent and handed the papers out
to like-minded friends and others. Samizdat undermined the ability of
the repressive communist regime. While the crackdown on independent
thinking eventually proved unsuccessful, totalitarian governments
around the world continue to shut down independent thought and free
expression.
Will The War On Sharing Ever End?
While sharing seems to be in the media spotlight far
more than ever before it is far from new. Without a doubt,
advancements in technology have certainly made it easier but humans
have been sharing with each other since the beginning of time. If
statistics are to be believed, more and more people are sharing with
each other.
A Slice of Raspberry Pi, Anyone?
A new computer system has come out: the Raspberry
Pi. It's a computer on a single circuit board. An all-in-one
processor, graphics card and memory cache slapped on a board with a
few I/O ports and a memory card slot. It won't win any design awards;
but then, it's not intended to.
An Empty Promise
I was
reading about some new "promise"
that Microsoft supposedly made, but in reading the details I see it as
much ado about nothing. Here are the points they made:
Your own privacy-aware, personally controlled server, part two
You've got the
computer you're going to use as your server, you've got your copy of
Trisquel, you know why you're running your own server, and why it's
important to do that with with free software. Now what?
Your own privacy-aware, personally controlled server, part one
Why Run Your Own
Server?
There are lots of reasons why someone might want to run their own
server, but I think the important ones boil down to freedom, privacy,
and autonomy. If you're not sure why you should run your own server,
Eben Moglen does an excellent job of explaining why everyone should. I
recommend this recording to become familiar with the issues.
Apple Launches Attack On Latin America
SAO PAULO, Brazil—December 13,
2011—Apple today announced the launch of their latest attack on
human freedom by making their iTunes Store available to people various
countries in Latin America.
YaCy
The Internet was
originally designed to be a peer-to-peer system where each person, or
peer, was free to share what ever information that they desired and it
was up to other peers to view it or not. In the original concept, each
node on the internet was designed to be its own server and the
information that was stored at another location could be accessed by
each server.
What Is Copyleft?
Copyleft is an idea. To understand it you first need to understand copyright.
The Legacy Of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs didn't invent the computer, or the cell phone, or the
portable music player, but he did help to make them popular. He wasn't
the first to use software to turn those devices into a jail, but he
was the first to make it cool to be in jail.
APT Repository for Linux-libre
I've begun maintaining an APT repository for Linux-libre,
graciously hosted by the Free
Software Foundation Latin America.
Mozilla's Trademark Policy Goes Too Far
I was recently reading the Mozilla
Trademark Policy after a discussion on
gnu-linux-libre raised questions about whether it makes Mozilla
software proprietary.
The (Lack) Of Cell Phone Freedom
I've been thinking about cell phones,
and there is no cell phone out there that is 100%
freedom-respecting.
Calling All Patent Trolls
It seems that everything's going downhill in the
patent world: The free software community didn't get the result we
were hoping for out of the Bilski case, and the i4i case actually made
it harder to invalidate patents. The patent system is already such a
mess, and these court decisions only seem to make it worse, so I've
come to the conclusion that we need more patent trolls.
Free Software And GNU
You may have heard of "free" software before. One common belief is
that it's free of cost. The majority of free software is available
without cost, but "free" really refers to freedom not
price. Specifically, the freedom to run, study, modify and distribute
the software.
DRM And Free Culture
I strongly believe in free culture and that all creative works everywhere should be free. Specifically, people should have:
- the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it
- the freedom to study the work and to apply knowledge acquired from it
- the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression
- the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works
GNU Social And You
Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets have
literally revolutionized the way many people in the world communicate.
But, is this communication really free? Can you expect that these
services will be up and running and that you'll be able to use them,
no matter the political climate of the time?
Home
Linux-libre
GitWeb
How To
Articles
RSS Feed
About Me
Contact Me
If you appreciate any of the things I am doing you can make a donation.
Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Jason Self. See license.shtml for license conditions. Please copy and share.