Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one
Joined Aug 2019
@cryptax 🤣 😭 here's an insane visual to your post:
@cryptax yeah, I have that feeling too, and I'm a Debian Developer even. Its a tricky balance. Debian takes a free-software-first stance and tries to push all work upstream as much as possible. That means in the short term, many devices are less polished. Ubuntu and Mint put a lot of effort to polish their own releases by including customizations and quirks in their forks. That means they have more polish, but means wasted effort in the long term. It is a tricky thing to balance.
@nobody @signalapp GNU is still central to GNU/Linux and GNU/Linux is central to building Android, GrapheneOS, Debian, Tails, Qubes, etc. Even macOS ships GNU. Maintenance counts. Don't forget maintenance.
Then like you said GNU Guix is leading the charge on strictly bootstrapable systems. And GNU Taler is leading the charge on privacy-respecting digital currencies, like real ones that aren't based on scams.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
🔞 Platforms have no excuse to continue practices that put children at risk.
We’ve asked Snapchat, YouTube, Apple App Store and Google Play for more information on the measures they have in place to protect minors.
This is the first investigatory step after the adoption of the Guidelines on the Protection of Minors, now also available in all EU languages and in a child- and parent-friendly version.
@nobody @signalapp
They said "GNU and FSF promote a bunch of highly insecure operating systems and products which causes real harm to users"
Without GNU and FSF's decades long fight for real free software, we'd be stuck with Microsoft and Apple for our "secure" options. GNU made Linux possible, made Android possible, made Qubes and Tails possible, etc. If you care about getting to real security, where everything is free software that can be inspected, then supporting efforts like FSF is key
@nobody @signalapp It happened because GrapheneOS claims to do everything for security, but then, dismisses projects that aim to replace binary blobs with free software. So perhaps they did not literally say what I wrote, but that's my synopsis of their logic, as far as I can follow it. I know of no standard to audit binary blobs with any reliability. Moxie was also never a believer in free software, his hand was forced by OTF to make Signal free. It was a requirement to receive funding.
I think words are not my native language. People often ask me, what language do I dream in. I just realized: not words. Imagery, emotions, feelings, sounds, actions.
I have the feeling I'm permanently lost in translation 😉
Wow the #enshittification cycle in #AI companies like #OpenAI and #Meta is going fast. Now they're going into dependence-inducing adult content and "sensual" chatbots for kids. How low will they go?
https://x.com/AskPerplexity/status/1978492956869828613
It seems y'all are really missing the point of the FSF in general and its librephone project. They are working to replace binary blobs with free software. I recommend reading their project description:
Why on earth are big #copyright companies so shitty? #Sony #MPAA etc etc. They think they are totally justified to just hit internet service providers with mostly wrong #AIslop infringement notices and have those ISPs do mass service cancellations. All because they need to defend their outdated broken business model that is hostile to digital media and the internet
#Cox is also a pretty bad company, but I'm very happy to support them as they are fighting this in court
@moshimotsu there is a very good reason why security audits are done on source code. Yes, observing behavior is important. Then when one has the source code, one can follow up and confirm the exact behavior. With a binary blob, that is not feasible.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
When we say #OpenSource, we mean business. That's why ALL Tuta apps are published on @fdroidorg
While Google & Apple monitor all push notifications, your data is safe when choosing Tuta Mail. 🔒
➡️ Learn why Tuta Mail is the only email provider app on F-Droid: https://tuta.com/blog/open-source-email-fdroid
Dear tech media, could we please stop using GrapheneOS as the judge on what's secure? I respect very much what GrapheneOS has built, but their stance that free software is not important to security is very short sighted. They literally are willing to call binary blobs secure because someone told them they are? They have no other standard to go on, since they can't inspect them.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/fsf_librphone_vs_proprietary_binary_blog/
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
'The people who make our lives more difficult arrive in private jets, not dinghies.'
@shaadra @forgejo While true that GitLab has proprietary features, the FOSS version is complete and widely used. What I'm talking about is more than just source code. GitLab operates as a company quite openly on gitlab.com and their employee handbook https://handbook.gitlab.com/ is public and open to all to submit merge requests. Or how Debian/F-Droid dev discussions happen on public forums that anyone can join. FOSDEM is another great example, anyone can just show up and take part in all of it
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
🇺🇦
@matthew_d_green A lot of that discussion is currently happening in scope of the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW) framework. Most people in these discussions are acutely aware of the far-reaching effects of all the associated nuances, with many of them remaining hard to predict. So we are pushing hard for the most privacy-preserving architecture we can come up with.
I'd love to hear your thoughts, e.g. on pseudonyms and the properties they should have: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05419v1
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
@me @fsf @fsfe This is important work, and a key piece of the puzzle for freeing our mobile devices. The other key is making it a right to unlock the bootloader and replace the operating system on devices that we own. Without that, all those users are still stuck on Android even if a perfect alternative exists. We believe this should be the next thing that the #DigitalMarketAct (#DMA) addresses.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Free the last bits of "anything Android"?
My positive thought about this is that #PostmarketOS and #MobileLinux in general will profit from any public knowledge about hardware it could run on.
If I understood correctly the money for doing the work on the #Android blobs is donated by John Gilmore. His Money, his decision where to put it. And there is a positive effect, but there is also a negative one:
Android is based on ideas by #Google. To free it we'd need to fork it and adopt it to different ideals and goals. Android is designed to maximize the profit of Google.
It is not designed with the users well-being and interests as the primary goal.
Just replacing blobs in Android keeps the ecosystem the same, promotes Google and their goals and leaves the control over design decisions for Android in Googles hands.
Once a device is freed by hard work of a few engineers it will be old, it will be uninteresting for people looking at Android and the latest shiny hardware running it.
But still - Mobile Linux will make good use of those devices as free OSes in general do when it comes to hardware left behind by commercial OSes.
Joined Aug 2019
