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Summary: Richard Stallman’s suggestion for people who want to compromise on the issue of firmware

THE latest Debian GNU/Linux, like the previous version (6.x), comes without notorious firmware by default, which causes inconvenience to some, yours truly included. I discussed this with Stallman and here are his views on the matter.

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Summary: Various questions from different people answered by Richard Stallman

Having solicited some questions for this interview with Richard Stallman, we start with a question about FreedomBox. One person asks: “How about freedombox? For the uneducated, the progress seems to be horribly slow. Here is the chance of a lifetime to show how with free software we could revolutionize the people communicate in the internet but the progress is too slow to take advantage of it.”

To paraphrase what Alessandro asks, “what new project is the FSF going to or would want to sponsor in the near future? For example, as the FSF sponsored GNU Media Goblin to free us from YouTube, Flickr etc., will there be something to free us from other risks to our privacy, freedom, and control over data?”

Another reader asks: “What are your opinions about the companies that work with Free Software, notably Red Hat and Canonical, and are, every time, distancing themselves more and more from the ideals of Free Software and making small proprietary walled gardens in their so-called ‘ecosystems’ (which, of course, harm the whole GNU/Linux ‘ecosystem’ and community). Specifically, Canonical with its own graphical server, package format and init system and Red Hat with its own init system that’s breaking the *nix paradigm of KISS and shoving down the throats of the entire community something that the community does not want (Gentoo and Slack are opposing it, Debian is sitting in the fence).”

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COULD not help noticing that society is moving away from civility, attaining the exact opposite of progress because plutocrats took over the government and are now occupying entire nations.

We oughtn’t assume that society always moves forward. Just look at the Middle Ages, Islamisation, the rise of Nazism in Germany and so on. Civil rights are relative, but they are not very subjective. There is a yardstick for comparatively assessing human values.

The United States has been the world’s unchallenged empire for a few decades now (after parity with the Soviet empire) and it is conspiring with several other nations where degradation of human rights is closely correlated (the UK is no exception). Consider collaboration on surveillance by the NSA, drone strikes (the UK and Australia help with those), indefinite detention (with abductions outside the US), and even torture cells in several unmarked sites across Europe (for the CIA to aggressively “interrogate” people). These are just a few examples among many more. This post is not an exhaustive summary of what I have in mind.

In the age of Facebook as an online distraction (people posting photos of their family and friends, i.e. unwittingly act as informants) I remain quite pessimistic. Those of us who try to warn others about the loss of civility in the digitised and increasingly-automated world (where spying and assassination too are being automated) just perpetually remain a niche, so the forces of plutocracy carry on, largely unchallenged and scarcely feared by the public. The corporate media helps keep it that way and independent sites keep imploding in an age of austerity and other types of pressure against the population at large.

I realise that protests — while they’re in principle considered legal here — are practically impossible. For a protest to be effective it needs to be disruptive but authorities limit the effect by ensuring no protest disrupts anything (otherwise there are mass arrests to serve as intimidation measures). Online protests are being suppressed and journalism too (see Barrett Brown), so even those of us who engage in peaceful activism and no civil disobedience are coming under unprecedented pressure.

Defeatism would be premature because leaks such as the ones from Manning and Snowden show everyone that we, the people, still have ways to counter human suffering.

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Summary: Tracking in Facebook criticised; Malicious features in mobile phones (tracking and listening) are being discussed as well

THIS 84^th episode speaks about phones’ exploitation for tracking and listening by authorities. For those who are not aware yet, as long as the main battery is inside a phone, or any battery at all is inside a phone (some have several batteries), then even when the phone is switched off it can be used to listen to the carrier and his/her environment. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, says the MI5 uses this technique.

Android/Replicant are discussed, noting that they do not help resolve the above issue. One listener of TechBytes asked: “Maybe you could ask him [Stallman] about so called smartphones. Everybody knows he doesn’t use any… But can he think any condition he could think about using one. Fairphone? Phone with FirefoxOS? Prepaid SIM without registration?” Stallman said he was hypothetically thinking about getting an OpenMoko phone, but eventually decided that tracking would be unavoidable.

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What the world needs is preservation, not de facto censorship

Summary: Please let QuinStreet understand why it should let DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices articles return to the World Wide Web

A company known as QuinStreet bought DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices almost exactly a year and a half ago, along with Ziff Davis Enterprise. As the announcement from QuinStreet put it, “QuinStreet will benefit from new and expanded relationships with some of the largest clients in the B2B technology vertical, as well as an impressive group of additional editorial professionals and expert writers.”

But what about all the valuable news stories? Not too long ago DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices went dark. The domains were left to rot and the articles accumulated there for over a decade became inaccessible, essentially deleted from the Web. It has come to our attention, after some inquiries with relevant individuals, that people who contributed to DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices — including the founders — do wish for the content to return online of for the copyrights or the articles to be changed — explicitly or implicitly — such that all the articles can be brought back to the Web by those to whom DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices were important resources or a matter of personal contribution.

DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices have published many thousands of high-quality articles detailing the history of GNU/Linux on desktops and in the device space, including the earlier days of Android. To let history be purged when QuinStreet has no financial incentive to do so is just counter-productive. Please write to CustomerService@QuinStreet.com to suggest that they relinquish the copyrights on articles or relicense so as to allow reposting of the articles online. This oughtn’t be complicated. This can be achieved by a single E-mail to the right people. If the company cannot provide a copy of the database (the ideal solution), then the articles can be pulled from the Web Archive and revived one by one (unless the process gets scripted). There are several people, including ourselves, who are eager to bring back exposure to articles that took many thousands of hours of work to produce. General enquiries and polite appeals can also be sent by mail to the following address:

950 Tower Lane, 6th Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
Tel: (650) 578.7700
Fax: (650) 350.1423

Help us restore two of the journals of record of the GNU/Linux community. Ask QuinStreet to collaborate on these efforts and assure the sustenance of its reputation this way. Right now the only barrier standing between the articles being online and those who want to put them online is lack of permission from QuinStreet. If QuinStreet does not want or need the articles, then why leave them offline in some dark space/room (or just on a backup tape)? Together we can promote dissemination of reliable historical information and also respect the work of many passionate people. Please let QuinStreet know how much DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices mean to you. Together we can accomplish this. Please be polite.

Shame on Katherine Ryan and shame on the BBC for giving her a platform

T IS astonishing that even in the year 2013 we have people going on TV to express racism under the guise of “it’s just a joke”. It’s offensive and it is despicable. Katherine Ryan, a Canadian comedienne who sadly enough lives in the same country as me, has decided to go all racist in the crappy quasi-corporate channel of the BBC (state propaganda funded by taxpayers but serving plutocrats from all across the globe).

Why does the BBC help Katherine Ryan build her career based on highly offensive racist jokes in Mock the Week? The BBC merely helps characterise and stereotype Brits as arrogant racists who look down on the world, as if that perception is not already hurting the national image.

The BBC should really issue apologies and distance itself from this dirty mouth known as Katherine Ryan. Racism is the lowest form of humour and an easy way to grab laughter at the expense of the pride of other human beings. Saying “it’s just a joke” or “I’m a woman and not a racist” is not a valid excuse. People are offended by jokes that are neither funny nor constructive. Humour is not the best cure when people’s feelings are hurt, and not due to their belief in superstitions (a choice) but because of their genetics (which is not a choice).

Racism is not humour. This is 2013 we’re in. BBC, heal thyself.

Also recent in this site: Racism as a Weapon