Guardian Project @guardianproject@librem.one

"A passionate and bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the country’s largest technology companies collapsed this week, the victim of an epic lobbying campaign by Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-20/big-tech-divided-and-conquered-to-block-key-bipartisan-bills

When #FDroid is built into a #FreeSoftware ROM, like #CalyxOS, #lineageos for #microg, etc there is no popup warning with fdroidclient. That comes from "Play Protect", which is #Google proprietary software that flags things based on automated rules, it does not point to real world security concerns for apps like #FDroid. I have nothing against the #targetSdkVersion sandbox, I just think it is important to note what it is good for, and what it cannot do well 2/2

As lead maintainer of the official #FDroid client, I hear a lot of criticism that #targetSdkVersion is still at 25. fdroidclient is #FreeSoftware, publicly audited, with #ReproducibleBuilds, written in memory safe languages, with a proven record of respecting #privacy and delivering #security. The source and binaries also receive human and machine review. #targetSdkVersion is designed around untrusted proprietary software with non-memory safe code where the binary only gets machine review. 1/2

@guardianproject @lauren And of course #ReproducibleBuilds is a key part of this whole picture, allowing anyone to confirm that the exact binary that is running on their device matches the source code as published and audited.

We may never be able to match the incredible achievements of #JohnMastodon, but the European Union still plays its part!

We are proud funders of Mastodon through the Next Generation Internet initiative (@EC_NGI).

Open,
Interoperable,
Decentralised,
Trust based.

More info: https://www.ngi.eu/blog/2022/11/24/how-ngi-supports-open-interoperable-decentralised-and-trust-based-internet-applications-through-fediverse-projects-like-mastodon/

Why curation and #decentralization is better than millions of #apps.

https://f-droid.org/2022/11/23/why-curation-and-decentralization-is-better-than-millions-of-apps.html

#AppStore #GooglePlay #iOS #Android

After two years of negotiations with Microsoft, the joint committee of the German federal data protection authority and 17 state regulators (DSK) published a devastating statement that essentially says that organizations currently cannot use MS365 in a lawful way under the GDPR.

RT @pixeldetracking@twitter.com

Migrating http://maps.google.com to http://google.com/maps, a benign change?

Not really, now Google has permission to geo-track you across all of its services, cf. https://garrit.xyz/posts/2022-11-24-smart-move-google 😈

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/pixeldetracking/status/1596087028986556418

No #SimReg nations: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Cabo Verde, Comoros, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Kiribati, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Moldova, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, UK, USA, and Vanuatu.

For people wanting some more information on NGI's involvement with #ActivityPub, this is a good starter: https://www.ngi.eu/blog/2022/11/24/how-ngi-supports-open-interoperable-decentralised-and-trust-based-internet-applications-through-fediverse-projects-like-mastodon/

Do you have an interesting ActivityPub-related project? The next deadline to submit proposals is December 1st - that is next week. And the best thing is: you can submit today!

In the over 3 weeks since #FDroid
shipped a big overhaul of the production buildserver, there have been updates published on most days: Nov16 Nov15 Nov14 Nov13 Nov11 Nov09 Nov08 Nov05 Nov01 Oct31 Oct30 Oct29 Oct28 Oct27 Oct26 Oct25 Oct24 Oct22 Oct21 Oct20

And now, even more exciting, is that this unlocked lots of low hanging fruit that can make the process run much faster.

No technology can save us from ourselves, but building a more interoperable social media environment could be our do-over on the current lock-in model. It could be awesome, if we don’t screw it up. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/fediverse-could-be-awesome-if-we-dont-screw-it

Proprietary software intentionally limits the way a program can be used or accessed as well as the rights over the code. This leaves society with little or no say over its technical infrastructure.

Control over technology has to be in the hands of the whole society, not just a small group! (3/4)

#FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #OpenSource #DigitalRights
https://media.fsfe.org/w/xs29yhLxSP1uKLYkSeoKKp

Why does #softwarefreedom matter?

⭐ Accessing the code, allows us to read it, understand it, and to argue in favour of a potential improvement.

⭐ Being able to to edit the code, encourages innovation, competition and autonomy. We can change parts of a program and publish the changes, benefiting users and developers.

⭐ Developers can cooperate closely and form communities around software that fits their needs. Software is used in a non- exclusive way, and serves the public good. (2/4)

Welcome to @Mastodon and the #fediverse! Are you aware of the rights you should have over software?

You should be allowed to:

• Use a program for any purpose - without any restrictions on place and time 🌍

• Understand the full code – and know exactly what it does 🔍

• Share and copy the program – developers can collaborate and share publicly their improvements 🎁

• Improve the code – e.g. for personal or local needs 📝 (1/4)

https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/freesoftware.html

How long is your current phone in service?

#FDroidUserSurvey

The European Commission praises Nextcloud as a role model for open source businesses!

Read about their comprehensive study in our blog!

https://nextcloud.com/blog/the-european-commission-praises-nextcloud-as-a-role-model-for-the-open-source-community/

mentors.debian.net internationalization (and call for translators) https://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n/2022/11/msg00007.html

We're new here. Please keep away from the scaffolding while we paint and remodel. 😎

@micahflee For those of us who prefer avoiding Birdsite / have fully disable JS:

https://nitter.net/micahflee/status/1595525568195616768

#Nitter