calling for a 2019 floss boycott and for rms to step down

[nosystemdthanks]

so the first thing ive done is change this original post to the official version i wrote later.

now ill respond to some of the responses, but if youre calling foul you can find the old version here: http://archive.is/eLtmx the official call (posted elsewhere) follows:



2019 boycott and a call for resignation

late christmas eve i had a bout of what im going to sum up as food poisoning. im doing better, and its time to look back on the christmas/grav-mass call i made for a boycott of free software and open source in 2019, as well as a call for rms to resign as president of the free software foundation.

i dont deny for a moment that different events would have resulted in at least, different wording and timing for such calls.

regarding the spirit of christmas, i can sum it up in one word: "stress." i do my very best to avoid the holidays, stallman is an atheist who celebrates "grav-mass" instead of christmas, i was not brought up religiously. but i do think christmas is simply overdone. its a stressful time of year, for me the stress was in trying to get too many things done that were entirely unrelated to a holiday. none of which is anyone elses fault, of course.

nonetheless, the excess of stress (as many negative events do) forced me to take full stock of the situation id spent years thinking about-- which is the state of free software. this is no coincidence-- most of the things i was hoping to accomplish on the 25th (none of which were, of course) were related to free software.

even though i knew far less about free software at the time, i recall the years from 2007 to 2014 as a time when gnu/linux was a fairly reliable operating system. yes, things do break and have to be fixed, but it was a time where effort was rewarded with confidence that the effort and self-education was worthwhile.

the more you learned, the more easily things worked. oh, if you got too ambitious that all went out the window-- everybody knows that. and part of the problem im sure, is that developers have set aside too much for their ambitions. though that isnt even the worst of it.

the worst things that have happened to free software over the past 4 years ive talked about many times, and will likely go into further detail again in the future. i have tried to explain the redix threat to stallman, others have tried to explain the smaller (but significant) matter of systemd, and no fewer than hundreds of developers have set aside great amounts of time and effort towards fixing these problems.

instead of getting things done, i spent more than 90 minutes of my christmas (time i absolutely needed to accomplish any of my other goals) simply getting sound to work again. now-- so what? i mean, if you run an update or install something new, or fiddle with a setting its your own fault if you chose to fiddle at a time when you didnt have time to clean up after it.

except i still cant think of a single thing i did. i hadnt installed anything, i didnt run updates, i do my very best to prevent unexpected updates of every kind-- i simply wanted my computer to work like it had a few hours ago (and by far, like it had for the entire month.)

this sort of desire was NOT unreasonable from 2007-2014. if you mess with it, as you sometimes ought to, then you know the consequences. but if you dont, and you dont have automatic updates, this simply shouldnt happen. it defintely shouldnt happen for no discernable reason, your computer should (if working according to specs) be fairly stable if you choose fairly stable software.

oh, fairly stable software! like we had until debian 8. of course im not using debian, and debian isnt directly the problem this time. i wouldnt have lennarts asinine soundsystem, which is basically the cause of 90% of average-user audio problems in gnu/linux history, installed if mozilla and gnu icecat didnt decide that this was an acceptable thing to drag into an otherwise working setup! i know that if i have it installed, sooner or later, sound is not going to work. its a given!

well, that day was today. for reasons i cant begin to guess, my web browser-- i suspected an update snuck through via the gnu servers, but ive since tried installing a separate browser which seems to make this less likely, but it remains a mystery-- which it shouldnt be! i know i cant get updates from mozilla, the network wont resolve them and the browser compains in the term window that it cant update. which is what i want, or it will try to disable plugins, which is evil, mozilla...

my web browser suddenly stopped offering sound. this was pretty remarkable since pulse was shown to be running, i hadnt done updates, i hadnt so much as changed the volume (though i did go through and check several things after this started) and when i restarted the browser, it complained that pulse wasnt running (ps said otherwise) whenever the browser tried to play sound.

so i tried updating pulse. that did nothing. i took the opportunity to run apulse, even though id never tried it before (it was on my list of things to try soon) and sure, when i ran both browsers with apulse, they stopped complaining that pulse wasnt installed. but still no sound.

i went through alsactl init, then i went through alsamixer to be sure that init hadnt turned the volume down (it often does) and the mute led on my keyboard was not lit, but the only way i can get the mute led to turn off is via alsamixer anyway.

i tried uninstalling pulse and then reinstalling it, and that didnt work the first time. i never got apulse working, but i never got pulse working again until later when i had uninstalled and reinstalled several things several times, including a second web browser.

this crap just doesnt work anymore.

and i will tell you what has happened over the past 4 years that stallman has denied there being any problem in the gnu/linux ecosystem-- even as the fsf adds a brand new distro to their list of official libre fsf distros-- designed to fight systemd!

a distro designed to fight a problem that stallman refuses to admit has plagued free software for four years now.

for four years, ive watched several groups of people take their time off improving gnu/linux to just try to fix the damage done.

and im only one of hundreds of other people who have noticed-- the damage still isnt fixed!

everything is hopelessly entangled, where things used to work more or less separately.

there was never a perfect point in time where everything worked. that would be mythology. no such setup exists, and even if it did, you wouldnt think it was friendly.

but its nothing short of incredible how gloriously distros fail now. its garbage, which the most conscientious developers-- those like the developers of hyperbola-- have spent 4 years trying to shovel back into a working distro.

i have spent 10x the amount of effort ive ever spent getting things work IN HISTORY and only some progress has encouraged me to continue.

i started an organisation to try to convince others and the fsf to take this matter into serious consideration-- and to promote various solutions-- knowing that nothing short of a huge letter campaign to the fsf would ever shift their organisation towards addressing the problem of redix.

but as 2018 (our first year as an organisation) comes to a close, i am forced to say that i have reached the point where i am sick of this.

in 2014, debian and the entire gnu/linux ecosystem were sabotaged.

i am well aware of the least-affected options. gentoo has stood up to this (which is why lennart called them out like a smirking blonde-headed weasel.) void, hyperbola and devuan drew a line in the sand (a line which devuan has undeniably retreated from, though they continue to contribute to solutions.) puppy linux is mostly immune. despite all my misgivings about puppy (over the years, ive listed many) it is the distro i learned the most from when i was first learning, and it is simply remarkable how unaffected they are by all of this sabotage.

if he cared about free software more than open source, i would say put barry kauler in as head of the fsf.

but i dont believe in open source-- if anything i believe "open source" is the vector for all this sabotage, and why mako "we should distance ourselves further from open source" hill is the ideal candidate if stallman ever resigns for any reason.

the fsf needs a president who stands up to these new challenges that threaten free software. and i dont think stallman is doing that anymore. indeed half the reason this organisation exists is because of lowered confidence in stallman.

lets talk about gratitude though, and credit where credit is due. i am well aware that most people who declare a lowered confidence in rms as the leader of his own movement, are declaring it for political reasons that benefit corporations and monopolies-- monopolies are the very problem that free software exists to provide alternatives to.

the "problem" that open source has with free software, is that its primary function is to eliminate the monopolies that they are saying free software "fails" to prop up or "work with."

the fact that open source is based on such a completely disingenuous and dishonest concept as that, should give far more people pause. but their rhetoric is mixed with lip service to empty truisms about "live and let live" and "lets all get along." lets all get along with what-- the very sort of top-down control that free software exists to liberate people from?!

seriously, mr. lunduke-- are you high?

so no, we dont need another smarmy corporate sycophant yes man to take over the fsf, as open source would propose. that would be utterly ludicrous.

and someone asked me this morning about my call to "impeach" stallman.

no, no, no-- theres a very important distinction to be made. im not asking for anyone to be impeached. even if that were possible, thats not what the call is for!

impeachment is a process of forcing a leader out. hopefully if youre going to force someone out of a position (think back to the 2003 invasion of iraq) you have someone better to take their place.

mr. stallman knows the importance of choosing the right word for the job-- i have called for him to resign or step down, which im well aware isnt going to happen (though it is no less sincere.) i have not called for him to be forced out. i do think he should be asked to do it.

and if youre going to ask someone to step down, there need to be reasons. my reason is simple and straightforward, and obviously controversial--

developers and free software leaders have ceased to display the level of responsibility and attention that they demonstrated in previous years. they have made gods of themselves and are acting more like corporations than people.

free licensing isnt enough. to contribute positively to free software, you have to show motives that dont result in sabotage of the entire ecosystem-- sabotage that pushes people away from things that are reliable and controlled by the user.

this is different from talking about quality. theres no law about creating "good software." you have the four freedoms-- you can create practically any software you want to! thats what freedom is.

but the free software ecosystem relies on a basic system that is under attack. and developers are increasingly unaccountable for what they do to hurt that ecosystem.

if you want to go off on your own and tinker to your hearts content with any piece of software, and it doesnt affect the core of the gnu/linux ecosystem-- youre doing no harm. you can create all the crappy software you want. maybe it will help!

maybe a person will take your crappy software and improve it. last year, i did some refactoring of my favourite program. its still messy and you might laugh at it, but its improved. and someone has already taken it and started improving it further.

all of that is fine, and all of that is the nice thing about software freedom. none of that affects the software ecosystem at all, unless it makes it easier for someone to manage a project of their own.

but the real damage that has happened over the past 4 years is people taking key software that everyone uses, and forcing redesigns in ways that lead to short-term adoption for short-term convenience, with long-term destruction and damage to both freedom and control by the user and reliability-- like never before.

and we know this tactic, because it is the eee tactic that the big players have written sheaves of memos about on how to destroy their competition.

and we know from those memos that their competition is free and "open source" software.

well, not open source-- because it panders to these monopolies.

which means the only real threat theyre fighting against is free software.

when you look at the tactics that are public knowledge-- we have seen them applied to destroy competitors and you can tell that from 2014 to the present, they have polluted and taken over the gnu/linux ecosystem--

and when the leader of the fsf does NOTHING and says NOTHING about any of this-- does NOT speak out against it, and insists that he doesnt understand any of this--

then yes, it is time mr. stallman, for you to voluntarily step down.

but i would stress that we need someone better, someone serious, to take his place.

i am not suggesting that rms should "just go home" and disappear from the public sphere.

i am not suggesting that he is any less fit to go do his paid talks, which i know he enjoys doing (or at least used to, and probably still does.)

i am not suggesting he should leave the fsf! he should certainly be on the board.

i am not suggesting that rms is any less the father of the free software movement, than albert einstein is the author of the theory of relativity.

but i do think he should resign as president or retire from the position, i do think that the fsf has spent FOUR YEARS in public denial about problems that are destroying free software, and forcing it to retreat from what could have been four years of steady progress, instead of four years scrambling to fix problems they cant even admit exist.

and i think that ben mako hill is the best possible replacement, ive thought so for the past 5 years or even longer (at least since matt smith joined doctor who, as i also thought that mako would be excellent for the role.)

and i feel confident that ben mako hill would have a great deal of respect in how he dealt with the problems ahead.

though of course, i could be wrong. and i expect mr. hill to either ignore all this, or say "no, thanks. id rather have stallman do this."

its got to be said that i dont think anybody is ready to fill the important role that stallman filled in 1984, and 1991, and 2005, and 2010-- the role that stallman filled when we learned about prism. im not knocking his career or brilliance or legacy, only the past 4 years of his presidency. the fsf needs him on the board, at a minimum.

i dont someday want to watch what is happening to apple with tim cook, happen to the fsf without rms. people were talking about what microsoft would do without gates, and after ballmer, and theres no reason we shouldnt talk about what the fsf would do without rms.

this doesnt make him any less important, we still owe him (and always will) for the very ecosystem that has degraded over the past 4 years.

but with that said-- organisations exist to give a leg up to their causes and their members. and i dont think the fsf is doing that right now. and i think its leadership is the reason.

the fsf has a responsibility to its members to first understand this threat, and then to make it known. it has failed on both of these.

someone should do something, and if mr. stallman is preventing them from doing so, he should step down.

if he is failing to do so himself, he should step down.

but i agree that we need to think about the best person to take his place. i dont think it is a role that any person will be fully prepared for. i dont think rms himself was fully prepared for it in 1984, but i dont think we would have come this far without him.

i do think we need someone stronger at the helm, as the threats have increased, and the condemnation and solutions to those threats have grown weak.

there is no one that is "like stallman, only more like him." that wont ever happen.

there are only people who are different. they would have to have enough in common that they filled the role, but we all know there will never be another president rms.

the fsf still has an important role, and that role needs to continue (or start again) with or without rms as president.

until then, i am calling for 2019 boycott of all free software.

use non-free software? no! use free software, of course.

i am calling for people to withhold all donations to free software projects in 2019. until developers and organisations are willing to acknowledge the problems they are experiencing-- and helping to create.

no, i doubt that boycott is likely to happen either. or perhaps someone else will lead a boycott like that, in 2020 or 2021, or however long it takes for people to get as tired of these problems as i am.

you can join this boycott in any sort of fashion you think is best-- im not laying down rules for it. after 2019, i am recommending the boycott end. if it does anything at all, one year should be long enough to make the point.

some people will tell you that only a "few" people understand the problems i am complaining about. since they were concerned even before i was, i know i can tell you that (whether their interpretation is in line with my own or not) the following people "get it" and have worked to solve this problem that fsf simply cannot bring themselves to admit exists:

1. denis roio, who already worked on dyne:bolic, an fsf-approved gnu/linux distro
2. emulatorman, who heads hyperbola, an fsf-approved gnu/linux distro
3. ian jackson, who joined debian in its first year, and has spent the past 4 years fighting this problem that the fsf does not admit exists
4. some debian developers who have left debian to fight this problem elsewhere
5. the veteran unix admins, who created devuan along with roio
6. fsmithred, maintainer of devuan live, refracta and the refracta-tools remastering programs
7. various bloggers and software developers who have spent years talking about these problems
8. most of the puppy linux community, at least those who would even notice the changes happening outside the puppy linux distro
9. anticapitalista, distro developer
10. aitor, developer of gnuinos
11. eric vidal, developer of obarun
12. (theres far more distros, developers and relatively famous people-- though im tired of listing them.)

i believe stallman is more focused on hardware-related threats and license-related threats, while the software ecosystem is constantly getting dragged backwards into windows-esque software lock-in and instability. the core free software ecosystem is no place for these problems.

indeed, these are the sorts of problems we fled to rely on gnu/linux as a solution to in the first place. we still have the freedom per se, but we have not for years now, enjoyed the full benefits of that freedom. without proper leadership, we are only bearing the costs to keep it from getting worse.

to say that this isnt about software freedom, is to say that if gnu/linux were wiped off the face of the earth, you would still have software freedom because you could write a replacement and use the gpl.

the effects are real, the problems are real-- the denial that happens year after year is shocking.

whatever is preventing the fsf from addressing this-- now (if not 4 years ago) is the time for that to end.

[disciple]

Boycott free software? What are you on? And do you seriously think RMS is a free software benevolent dictator? What do you want him to do? Blacklist things like systemd and send their creators to the gulags? Do the same with anyone who doesn't keep their projects stable?0

[Colonel Panic]

I've been ticked off on the ConnochaetOS forum for admitting I used Opera (which is course a closed source program), so I feel have an interest in this discussion.

RMS's starting point in any discussion about software are his Four Freedoms;

The unlimited use for any purpose.

The right to study how the program works and understand it.

The right to share copies of the software

The freedom to improve the program and to distribute the improvements to the program,

https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html

All well and good. For me though there's a fifth one, which is not directly acknowledged by the Free Software Foundation;

The right to know that any final release of a piece of software will work more or less as intended; i.e. that it won't crash unexpectedly and lose the document I've spent half an hour working on, or that it won't black out the text window and make a document unreadable (I'm talking about you, Abiword).

I've had too many mishaps with software like Abiword, Iceweasel (which I think has improved recently) and qtbrowser (which crashed every time I used it) to want to put my sole trust in software which fits the FSF model. If a company like Softmaker can release software which does what I want it to do I don't see why I should feel I have to apologise to the FSF, or to forums such as ConnochaetOS'swhich adopt their standards, if I want to use it.

[disciple]

Some people would expect that when they choose to hang out with the most extreme group of free software enthusiasts they can find. Are you sure you weren't trolling them?

People (even Linus recently, if he was accurately reported) criticise the free software movement because it is looks like anarchy - it is characterised by flame wars and forks and having a choice of hundreds or thousands of alternative tools to do the same job. Normally when we talk about a cult it implies the opposite - a system of control that makes everyone do everything the same i.e. much more like Apple or even Microsoft.

[Colonel Panic]

Some people would expect that when they choose to hang out with the most extreme group of free software enthusiasts they can find. Are you sure you weren't trolling them?

Of course. I participated in good faith on that forum, just as I do here, and had (from memory) about 110 posts there.

ConnochaetOS isn't what I would call an extreme group of free software enthusiasts, but they are committed to the free software paradigm and won't include any closed software in their distro. I haven't used it for a while so I don't know if it is defunct or not.

My interest in the distro was because it runs on much older hardware than most distros do, in fact it was expressly created for that purpose, so for me I didn't consider I had to be committed to the FSF model in order to use it (and for the record it works well with Opera 11 and 12, a fact which they didn't welcome). The fact that it ran on old hardware was primary for me, not its adherence to the FSF model. Others may disagree (and did).

Have to admit I preferred it when it was based on Arch to when it later moved to a Slackware base.

[tallboy]

And I don't even know what floss or any of the other unexplained abbreviations mean...
Which probably indicate that they are irrelevant to me.

[disciple]

My interest in the distro was because it runs on much older hardware than most distros do, in fact it was expressly created for that purpose, so for me I

Ah, I didn't realise that. Have you moved on to anything similar subsequently?

[Colonel Panic]

My interest in the distro was because it runs on much older hardware than most distros do, in fact it was expressly created for that purpose, so for me I

Ah, I didn't realise that. Have you moved on to anything similar subsequently?

Thanks for asking.

There aren't many. ConnochaetOS will run on a Pentium 3 with just 128 MB of RAM; most distros now need a lot more than that.

I used to like John Biles's Teenpup and Legacy OS, but neither will boot let alone run on my current machine (I like ttuuxxx's Classic Pup 2.14 too, but the same applies there too). I have fond memories though of running one of John Biles's creations on a machine in my local computer centre which had just 128 MB of RAM, about ten years ago, and I was still able to watch a Youtube video with it (Hawkwind's "Silver Machine!").

[nosystemdthanks]

Boycott free software?

yes.

do you seriously think RMS is a free software benevolent dictator?

what are you asking? benevolent dictator is a common title in the free software world. are you saying that someone has greater say in management of the gnu project than rms does? if so, im unaware of this.

are you saying that someone has greater say in management of the fsf than rms does? if so, i doubt it completely.

but i dont know what youre trying to imply with your question. that stallman actually has how much more or how much less say in the fsf or gnu than you think im saying...

youre probably better off just rephrasing the question to be less vague.

What do you want him to do? Blacklist things like systemd and send their creators to the gulags?

thats a ridiculous question. it should be obvious from what i said originally:

and you think its fine. and people have told you its broken, you have not listened, you have not taken this seriously-- and if its not serious then why should you take it seriously?

that i want him to admit this is a problem for free software, and address it like he does all the other problems free software has. which isnt all about blacklists and gulags.

though you may not be aware, at least ONE fsf-approved distro does have a blacklist with systemd on it. that is only one of a few ways to address the problem. it isnt the only way i find acceptable.

Do the same with anyone who doesn't keep their projects stable?0

no, the problem isnt that some projects arent stable. the problem is the inherent instability introduced into the entire ecosystem. ive already noted exceptions.

which means i basically answered your question before you asked it. either you misunderstood me, which is alright-- or you wanted to, which is-- well, someones going to.

[nosystemdthanks]

I've been ticked off on the ConnochaetOS forum for admitting I used Opera (which is course a closed source program), so I feel have an interest in this discussion.

thatll happen. free software forums are generally expected to discourage promotion of non-free software. they can be polite about it, but sometimes they get uppity.

i have mixed feelings about it. i can certainly sympathise with both sides of the argument on that. however, i know where some of the arguments come from, and i dont really sympathise with the sources as much as the argument itself.

All well and good. For me though there's a fifth one, which is not directly acknowledged by the Free Software Foundation;

The right to know that any final release of a piece of software will work more or less as intended; i.e. that it won't crash unexpectedly and lose the document I've spent half an hour working on

thats not a freedom or right, its an expectation. however in some jurisdictions its something you can take vendors to task over.

if you made a right for something to be perfect, theyd have to shut this forum down. ultimately barry and satya nadella would have to retire. apple would go out of business.

nobody really wants that expectation to be a 5th freedom. some think they do, and thats understandable. its just too unrealistic. and thats coming from someone calling for a boycott of floss in 2019.

or that it won't black out the text window and make a document unreadable (I'm talking about you, Abiword).

i really dont understand the love of abiword. i always remove from everything i touch, because its the most unstable piece of software ive ever used-- worse than systemd. i would sooner include a program called dont_ever_run_this.py

import os
while True: os.fork()

because it warns you not to run it and works as designed, than abiword. but youre mostly free to run it. mostly.

as im told, abiword has non-free fonts hardcoded into its source. go figure. (note: im not sure of this.)

I've had too many mishaps with software like Abiword, Iceweasel (which I think has improved recently) and qtbrowser (which crashed every time I used it) to want to put my sole trust in software which fits the FSF model.

fwiw, iceweasel was solely debian (never fsf) and only created over a trademark issue (blame mozilla) and due to mozilla changing the requirements, was abandoned in 2017.

hyperbola has recently picked it up and created "iceweasel-uxp" and they seem to be serious-- good luck getting it into puppy though (i dont know if theres even a binary for it.)

If a company like Softmaker can release software which does what I want it to do I don't see why I should feel I have to apologise to the FSF,

but of course, thats not the point. no one says you should have to. not even the fsf.

or to forums such as ConnochaetOS's which adopt their standards, if I want to use it.

but the same applies.

the stated goal of free software is to liberate all users from non-free software.

with all the philosophical and ideological problems that come with liberating someone else, they are mostly dictating (yes, i know) that if youre going to talk about the advantages of being "shackled" by non-free software, you have to do it somewhere else than a free software forum.

as i already stated, i have mixed feelings about that.

on the one hand, i feel its too strict a policy.

on the other, i can totally appreciate that theyre not going to say "come to our forum that exists to promote freedom and talk about how great it is to use the very software we recommend against."

but i sort of feel like either of those opposites dont allow enough room for rational discussion.

so if you feel theyre making it too either/or, id probably feel similarly.

i have a forum (nobody uses it) and it exists to promote free software.

i dont want it to be taken over (id probably do something about it if it actually happened) primarily by non-free software discussion, that would defeat the purpose of the forum.

but i feel like discussion that is more open than what the fsf allows is probably better.

you will note, as i have noticed, that the murga forums have no policy at all about discussion of non-free software. has the forum been taken over by windows and mac fans? more than a decade in, not yet...

you can still bash microsoft and apple here all you want. youve gotta be very careful about that sort of thing on the ubuntu forums (at least you used to.)

[nosystemdthanks]

And I don't even know what floss or any of the other unexplained abbreviations mean... :(
Which probably indicate that they are irrelevant to me. :P

"this is irrelevant to me, i still commented just to say so." thanks, buddy.

i dont actually believe that someone on the puppy forum doesnt know what floss is-- but to be fair, i mean its possible.

[nosystemdthanks]

People (even Linus recently, if he was accurately reported) criticise the free software movement because it is looks like anarchy - it is characterised by flame wars and forks and having a choice of hundreds or thousands of alternative tools to do the same job.

thats an extremely dubious remark from linus. his foundation is constantly courting large companies that want to squash all the little guys, and yet he focuses on blaming those guys for having options.

and having linus "taking time off to learn how not to be such a bro" torvalds criticise people for "flame wars" is like having david duke criticise people for "hate speech." i mean who does he think hes kidding? what did they reeducate him with on his little vacation, whips and chains?

i dont mean it linus.

you know we love you. http://archive.is/Rk51f

having a choice of hundreds or thousands of alternative tools to do the same job.

ive actually applauded puppy for this in some ways, i mean puppy is the broadest example of this i can think of.

debian has quite a few remixes as well. but puppy probably leads in the number of little tools that do things that already exist.

so linus has a problem with that. but his most likely reasons are that he supports monopolies.

its not an unheard of pattern that people start out humble "oh, hahaha, dont call it linux, thats too much!" and then success makes them side with the elite.

open source was never about choices-- it is about "practicality" and sympathy for monopolies. with free software, choice is supposed to be by design. with open source, it is a byproduct, or sometimes part of the marketing. theres nothing wrong with practicality either, but when its part of the marketing, it encourages debate about just how practical it really is.

you know a great reason to make your own tools that already exist? so you can learn how to make tools.

i mean, did linus ever think we needed another version of hello world? https://invidio.us/watch?v=S5S9LIT-hdc no, but that wasnt the point.

not all software tools are really products, theyre just programs. how can linus have a problem with that? its just silly.

if people are writing programs that do what they want and that means its harder for ibm to sell the software suite they bought from some other company, is it our job to help them out by not writing stuff we want to? what we are, corporate socialists?

ibm wants to make the same amount of money, they just want to put less money into the process. open source is great for that. but so is blaming people for having choices, which seems to be the angle linus is getting at. hes so corporate, he should just put a suit and tie on already.

[tallboy]

i dont actually believe that someone on the puppy forum doesnt know what floss is-- but to be fair, i mean its possible.

Well, I don't, and to care for something or make it relevant, I need to know. I am sure that your heading and initial post mean a lot to you, but to make others interested, you have to use language that all can understand, not only a few likeminded. So why don't you tell me instead?

[wiak]

Well...

I've mainly (almost entirely) been using DebianDogs of one flavour or another since, I think, late 2013. For some years now I generally always use XenialDog64 - I've quickly run BionicDog64 and that also looks promising, but I take the view that when something 'works' why change unless some particularly strong reason materialises. As it happens, I boot via systemd (which I know a little about, but not much, though I keep meaning to learn more...) and I also have pulseaudio as part of my permantent installation (because I want it). Personally, all is stable for me - I switch my computer on, and it works, just like it always does, pretty much just as I want it (in fact I can't think of any genuine exception) and I run XenialDog64 in that fashion on three other computers in my household. Basically I can't really be bothered mucking around with installation 'experiments' or 'fixing' software and neither pulseaudio nor systemd gives my computers, at least, any such issues. Lucky me I guess.

SysVinit [<=Edit] is a bit old behind the ears in some ways; nothing wrong with that I suppose - it also works - but with limitations in terms of parallelism/efficiency and 'standardisation' it certainly is not (lots of ways of doing things). I find systemd approach quite exciting; yes, it would be a pain if it didn't work for me, or caused problems seemingly nosystemdthanks has, but I simply haven't come across these problems and OS-related politics are not important to me (though environmental issues, and the gap between 'us-rich and these-other-poor' disgusts me - I can't really convince myself to blame Microsoft, Apple or Google for that gap, though I do hate the way my browsing habits are echoed back to me by Google/Facebook and so on, though that tends to convince me that I should switch off my computer more often and spend more time in the fresh outside, unconnected, air).

Actually, I've hardly switched on my really-quite-reliable XenialDog64 system for some weeks; aside from being holiday period, it is summer and sunny here, so I've been living more 'healthily' for a wee while, but today I logged-in but don't understand why I wrote this comment. Oh well, written now; of course if something trully goes wrong with the LinuxOS-related world (I don't personally accept that GNU software rules that) then, I certainly would become a bit more concerned - I just don't personally find anything particularly concerning about that at this moment.

Code: Select all

root@xenial64:~# ps -p 1
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
    1 ?        00:00:02 systemd

Happy New Year when it comes!

wiak

[nosystemdthanks]

wiak:

"it works for me" doesnt really address or negate-- at all-- 4 years of people saying that something is less reliable that takes more control away from both users and developers. thats the primary drawback of anything in the "it works for me" category of arguments.

but its great that youre happy. a lot of people are happy, and what that comes down to in terms of logic is akin to saying "not everyone is unhappy with systemd."

which is a given, but kind of a change of subject from the people who are unhappy-- who (for the most part) never claimed to represent every single person on earth.

i dont actually believe that someone on the puppy forum doesnt know what floss is-- but to be fair, i mean its possible.

Well, I don't, and to care for something or make it relevant, I need to know. I am sure that your heading and initial post mean a lot to you, but to make others interested, you have to use language that all can understand, not only a few likeminded. So why don't you tell me instead?

you actually dont have to be "likeminded" to be one of the many (not few) who know the terms i used, but if youd said you were interested in understanding the terms before, i would have simply explained them.

instead, you said you didnt understand them and thus they probably werent important (or something to that effect.)

this is a (gnu) linux forum, and its one place someone might take for granted that a large number of people are familiar with these terms. but since youre still asking-- alright:

grav-mass:
atheist holiday celebrated by richard stallman

ps:
process status, a common command line program for listing running programs

alsa:
advanced linux sound architecture

alsactl:
a command line program to initiate the alsa sound layer (among other related functions)

alsamixer:
a text user interface program to adjust sound levels for devices

apulse:
a pulseaudio alternative that just ties things that require pulse to alsa

devuan:
a debian fork focused on not requiring systemd

eee:
a microsoft tactic for taking over the program functionality of competitors, similar to the master control program in the original tron film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eee

fsf:
free software foundation -- the organisation started by richard stallman in 1984 that promotes free software, predating the linux kernel by about 7 years

gnu:
gnus not unix -- a project to create a fully-free operating system (which today also supports the linux kernel, and is the basis for puppy linux) started by richard stallman, and predating the linux kernel.

also used as a brand for related projects such as gnu icecat, a browser based on firefox.

gpl:
gnu general public license -- the primary "copyleft" license (or license that allows you to use/study/share/change the software, provided you make the sourcecode available and offer the same rights to others you share your version with) used by the fsf, gnu operating system and related projects

hyperbola:
a distro that the fsf very recently added to their list of approved "fully free" distros

lennart:
lennart poettering, a person who works for redhat and co-developed pulseaudio, avahi and systemd

lunduke:
bryan lunduke, a well-paid troll, software developer and vlog host

mako:
benjamin mako hill, arguably the most overall similar free software advocate to richard stallman (if you go international, you might also consider alex oliva of fsf-la, the latin american branch of the fsf)

redix:
systemd and all similiar projects that either fly under the fsfs radar but pose a threat to the future of free software. a possibly orchestrated, or incredibly familiar (to eee tactics) but entirely coincidental effect that degrades
-- posix (the standard that holds the gnu/linux ecosystem and other related operating systems together)
-- and replaces it with something more corporate, less reliable, and more centralised (by design, according to lennart himself)

rms:
richard matthew stallman, who also refers to himself as rms and "chief gnuisance" of the fsf.

[ITSMERSH]

The above list is missing "floss", the term tallboy doesn't know about and he was asking for.

And by the way: I have heard/read the term floss but don't really know what it means and so, I couldn't even explain it here and now.

[fredx181]

Some info about FLOSS and FOSS :

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html
(by Richard Stallman, also known as RMS )

https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison.en.html

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/qu ... -and-floss

Fred

[nosystemdthanks]

:lol:

The above list is missing "floss", the term tallboy doesn't know about and he was asking for.

thats what i get for putting it off till last.

free software-- free software
foss-- free/open source software
floss-- free/libre/open source software

simply put, overuse of combinations of the two terms feed the open-source-serving conflation of the two things as the same.

free software is about freedom-- open source tries to avoid the subject a lot of the time, even discourages it.

bruce perens co-founded the open source initiative (osi is to open source what the fsf is to free software) thinking that it would help promote free software, and left a year later, citing numerous problems that he felt overshadowed the very thing it claimed to be the same as:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1 ... 01641.html

my feelings about osi are well summarised by the comments of this co-founder.

the reason i chose to use the word "floss" is because i wasnt conflating the two movements, i was referring to both at once.

"libre" only came about because spanish has libre leaning towards the meaning of free "free as in freedom" and gratis, leaning towards the meaning of "free as in free beer"

but that only happened when open source spent years and years saying "our movement is better because free is such a confusing word and no ones ever going to sort it out from context alone..."

yet open source advocates all seem to write open source software on computers from apple-- i mean, thats such a confusing brand name for a company. these days when people say "apple" i dont know if they mean "apple as in fruit" or "apple as in computer"

which (by this 5th-grade sort of logical argument that has remained a cornerstone of open source for two decades) is why lenovo is a better computer to buy than one from apple, because its way less confusing.

[tallboy]

Thank you. I have been using Linux for almost 20 years, and I am familiar with all the other abbreviations, but I have never seen the expression floss before.
I think you americans often get hung up in words, which may stem from your judicial system, where the letter of a law seem to take priority over the intention of the law. It sometimes shift the focus in a debate from the actual subjects to the description of them. Not always easy to follow.

[dancytron]

Some info about FLOSS and FOSS :

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html
(by Richard Stallman, also known as RMS )

https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison.en.html

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/qu ... -and-floss

Fred

Reminds me of Property Owner's Associations fighting over whether to allow someone to paint their house pink, whether their neighbor's fence is 6 inches too high or someone has a boat parked in their driveway.

At least it keeps them busy so they aren't bothering people who have more serious things to deal with.