Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one
Joined Aug 2019
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Mozilla added scanning of data broker sites to its privacy protecting Mozilla Monitor
@drwhax It is a symbol to start with, let's hope that something real comes of it. I hope it makes developers who work at such firms feel much less comfortable working at those kinds of companies. This interview with an #NSOGroup employee talks about how it was fun to work there, and had a nice family atmosphere. So many shady companies provide lovely workplaces to keep employees in a cozy bubble so they don't ask too many questions.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=A4ylyhqZAaI
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
The White House just announced visa restrictions on those involved in spyware misuse. Are you a family member of someone misusing or facilitating spyware? You can be sanctioned as well! Great step to further delegitimise the highly invasive surveillance industry!
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
The election year focus on 'deep fakes' is a distraction, conveniently ignoring the documented role of surveillance ads--or, the ability to target specific segments to shape opinion. This's a boon to Meta/Google, who've rolled back restrictions on political ads in recent years.
Put another way, a deep fake is neither here nor there unless you have a platform + tools to disseminate it strategically.
@ticklemyIP @fdroidorg is there anyone here who uses the NFC feature be willing to contribute to maintaining it in the #FDroid client app?
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Do you share F-Droid repos with the NFC feature in our client app?
Background: the support for Android NFC Beam was removed in Android 14, so we probably have to remove this feature in the future. We want to know if anybody is impacted by this.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Hello #FOSDEM, this guy, Alberto Marti, announced 3bn euros for this open source European cloud project with an explicit focus on interoperability.That’s more than 2x the funding announced here back in December. Is there a link online for more info?
Did the other 2bn come from private sector investors?
I am not a lawyer. #CRA is #CyberResilienceAct and #PLD is #ProductLiabilityDirective.
After #FOSDEM my current understanding of how #EU #CRA and #PLD affects #FDroid and anyone who contributes to it:
* F-Droid org makes the "product" so it would be liable
* F-Droid is currently entirely non-commercial, handles no money
* Volunteer contributors are very clearly exempt from all this
* Donation funded contributions are also exempt
* Contracted contributors are helping build the regulated product, so the legal entities of the contractors would not be liable for F-Droid's "product"
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
This week in F-Droid (TWIF) was published again.
Our highlight this week:
F-Droid and F-Droid Basic were updated to the stable version 1.19.0. It brings automatic background updates and a new and better workflow for adding repositories. Please note: this version is not yet the suggested version, so you need to enable beta updates, if you don't want to wait any longer.
Also we talk about notable updates oft some apps and the ongoing spring cleaning.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
EU to delay new green rule in bid to appease protesting farmers - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/31/eu-delays-biodiversity-rules-amid-rising-protests-from-farmers stupid move: you shouldn't give in to blackmail, they will just do it again...
I'm working on a small project on the history of built-in "app stores". My hypothesis is that this idea actually originates from #GNULinux distros like #Debian. That was my personal experience of it. I started using computers in 1981 and have used DOS, Apple ][, C64, OS/2, GEM, Windows, MacOS, NeXTSTEP, MacOSX, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and many distros starting with Slackware. I know the history of Debian, iOS, and Android well. Anyone have any other examples I might have missed?
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Study finds that once people use cargo bikes, they like their cars much less - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/study-finds-that-once-people-use-cargo-bikes-they-like-their-cars-much-less/ "Even some one-car households ditched vehicles in favor of cargo bike-sharing." #transport
If people get together and build themselves a really nice neighborhood that is pretty, fun to be in, good people nearby, effective services, etc. is it then inevitable that it gets turned over to mass tourism? Or gets sold out to foreign oligarchs? Both of these outcomes ruin the place. Those are both true for the places where some of my family are from, where I grew up, where I went to university, the city I lived for 20 years before returning to said city where some family live.
@micahflee making her all the more dangerous because she could redeem the idea of billionaires in many peoples' eyes.
@daniel There will be F-Droid for #iOS as soon as #Apple releases a #FreeSoftware version of it. F-Droid supports free software platforms. That said, F-Droid also provides all tools needed to run an #AppStore, so we welcome the use of our stack to run an app store on other platforms. There has even been externally funded contributions towards making fdroid-based app stores for iOS and a Flutter app that can be built for iOS:
* https://f-droid.org/2023/06/16/progessive-web-client.html
* https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver/-/issues/1193
#SovereignTechFund provides an alternate model that fits better: fund essential free software from taxes, which companies cannot avoid paying, then everyone gets the benefits without worrying about sustainability. Kudos to Red Hat for making a market-driven approach work as well as it has for decades, but it is clearly not the best solution for funding infrastructural software.
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At the same time, RedHat has been a major funder of free software development, with key contributions to GNOME, Linux, GNU and more. Oracle is very unlikely to contribute anything near those levels, yet Oracle is a thread to RHEL. The non-profit RHEL forks might be able to raise real amounts of dev funding, but as much as I like that model, it is far from proven.
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Markets are a useful tool but they are not always the best tool for sustainable funding. #RedHat's recent decision to restrict access to source code provides a good example of that. #FreeSoftware via RHEL is the foundation for so many large companies but market-driven companies work to avoid paying for anything extra, even when they clearly benefit from it.
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#RedHat's policy of sharing source code with paying subscribers highlights the key differences between #FreeSoftware and #OpenSource thinking. Free Software focuses on #UserFreedom and #RHEL users have that since it includes #GPL source code. #OpenSource focuses on business model freedom, where companies are free to do whatever with the source code, including taking it proprietary and restricting the user. RedHat behaves Open Source, adding restrictions where it can.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
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Joined Aug 2019
