free software

Often you want to exchange some content only with people who know a given password and make it accessible to everyone in your little group but invisible to the outside world.

Until yesterday I thought that problem slightly complex, because everyone in your group needs a given encryption program, and you need a way to share the file without exposing the fact that you are sharing it.

Then I learned two handy facts about Freenet:

• <ArneBab> evanbd: If I insert a tiny file without telling anyone the key, can they get the content in some way?

This is a mail I sent as listener comment to Free as in Freedom.

Hi Bradley, Hi Karen,

I am currently listening to your Steve Jobs show (yes, late, but time is scarce these days).

And I side with Karen (though I use KDE): Steve Jobs managed to make a user interface which feels very natural. And that is no problem in itself. Apple solved a problem: User interfaces are hard to use for people who don’t have computer experience and who don’t have time to learn using computers right.

→ a comment to 10 Hackers Who Made History by Gizmodo.

As DDevine says, Richard Stallman is no proponent of Open Source, but of Free Software. Open Source was forked from the Free Software movement to the great displeasure of Stallman.

He really does not like the term Open Source, because that implies that it is only about being able to read the sources.

Different from that, Free Software is about the freedom to be in control of the programs one uses, and to change them.

More exactly it defines 4 Freedoms:

As I pledged¹, I just donated to freenet 50€ of the money I got back because I cannot go to FilkCONtinental. Thanks go to Nemesis, a proud member of the “FiB: Filkers in Black” who will take my place at the Freusburg and fill these old walls with songs of stars and dreams - and happy laughter.

It’s a hard battle against censorship, and as I now had some money at hand, I decided to do my part (freenetproject.org/donate.html).

My wheel type command interface pyRad just got included in the official Gentoo portage-tree!

So now you can install it in Gentoo with a simple emerge kde-misc/pyrad.

AGPL is a hack on copyright, so it has to use copyright, else it would not compile/run.

All the GPL licenses are a hack on copyright. They insert a piece of legal code into copyright law to force it to turn around on itself.

You run that on the copyright system, and it gives you code which can’t be made unfree.

To be able to do that, it has to be written in copyright language (else it could not be interpreted).

my_code = "<your code>"

def AGPL ( code ): 
    """
    >>> is_free ( AGPL ( code ) )
    True
    """
    return eval (
        transform_to_free ( code ) )

copyright ( AGPL ( my_code ) )

You pass “AGPL ( code )” to the copyright system, and it ensures the freedom of the code.

→ An answer to just accept it, truth hurds, where Flameeyes told his reasons for not liking the Hurd and asked for technical advantages (and claimed, that the Hurd does not offer a concept which got incorporated into other free software, contributing to other projects). Note: These are the points I see. Very likely there are more technical advantages which I don’t see well enough to explain them. Please feel free to point them out.

Information for potential testers: The Hurd is already usable, but it is not yet in production state. It progressed a lot during the recent years, though. Have a look at the status report if you want to see if it’s already interesting for you.

Thanks for explaining your reasons. As answer:

Firstoff: FUSE is essentially an implementation of parts of the translator system (which is the main building block of the Hurd) to Linux, and NetBSD recently got a port of the translators system of the Hurd. That’s the main contribution to other projects that I see.

On the bare technical side, the translator-based filesystem stands out: The filesystem allows for making arbitrary programs responsible for displaying a given node (which can also be a directory tree) and to start these programs on demand. To make them persistent over reboots, you only need to add them to the filesystem node (for which you need the right to change that node). Also you can start translators on any node without having to change the node itself, but then they are not persistent and only affect your view of the filesystem without affecting other users. These translators are called active, and you don’t need write permissions on a node to add them.

Also published on Mercurials Workflows wikipage. Originally written for PyHurd: Python bindings for the GNU Hurd.

For Whom?

If you

1. want to develop features collaboratively and you want to be able to see later for which feature a given change was added or
2. want to do changes concurrently which would likely affect each other negatively while they are not finished, but which need to be developed in a group with minimal overhead,

then this workflow might be right for you.

Note: If you have a huge number of small features (2000 and upwards), the number of persistent named branches can create certain performance problems. For features which need no collaboration or need only a few commits, this workflow also has much unnecessary overhead. It is best used for features which will be developed side by side with default for some time (and many commits), so tracking the default branch against the feature is relevant. To mark single-commit features as belonging to a feature, just use the commit message.

Note: The difference between Mercurial named branches and git branches is that git branches don’t stay in history. They don’t allow you to find out later in which branch a certain commit was added. If you want git-style branching, just use bookmarks.

A rough draft of Infinite Hands with additional instruments.

The Flute and Bodhran tracks are improvised on the spot and recorded yesterday in one go, so they are a bit rough :)

Also the vocals are finally up to date with the text.

I hope you enjoy it!

→ download ←

For more Information on the song, see infinite-hands.draketo.de.

For my new Neo-Keyboard I wanted the GNU head from GNU and the plussy from FSFE on the meta/super keys (those which often have a Fenster-Logo). Sadly the normal GNU head did not work very well with the Laser from Schubi, so I grabbed my tablet, fired up mypaint and created a new one, building on the old, but adding more contrast and stronger lines. I hope you like it!