Post 3173888 by maddin@chaos.social
(DIR) More posts by maddin@chaos.social
(DIR) Post #3124358 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T00:19:06Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Linux and “open source” in a nutshell, from the horse’s mouth:“There is a genuine reason to worry. My desktop is free but my data and applications (which run in the cloud) aww not … what do you care about more – just that the code is open or also about the business practices as well?”Linus Torvalds: “Personally, I only care about the code. When I say maybe there are people who worry about walled gardens and cloud provides who take ownership of your data, I am not one of those people.”
(DIR) Post #3124359 by grumpy_developer@mastodon.technology
2019-01-19T00:57:42Z
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@aral the cloud has been the killer app for Linux, not totally surprised he doesn't feel the urge to trash his claim to fame :-). But that segment seems quite specific about localization of data, not data trading practices. He seems to be predicting increased regulation of that
(DIR) Post #3124360 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T01:14:49Z
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@grumpy_developer Indeed. #SurveillanceCapitalism runs on Linux.
(DIR) Post #3124361 by tleydxdy@pl.smuglo.li
2019-01-19T02:15:36.757348Z
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@aral @grumpy_developer at least it runs on "linux", if it where bsd or some permissive license soft, "open source" wouldn't even been a thing. I thank old hackers for that.
(DIR) Post #3124627 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T00:21:48Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
From Linux Magazine, Feb 2019#SurveillanceCapitalism
(DIR) Post #3125056 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T00:33:09Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
* aww = are, provides = providers, autocorrect = a dickhead, me = has still not learned to proof-read a toot before tooting a toot
(DIR) Post #3125336 by lain@pleroma.soykaf.com
2019-01-19T02:58:11.165518Z
5 likes, 2 repeats
@aral well, that's open source. we're doing free software.
(DIR) Post #3125472 by nigeldgreen@mastodon.org.uk
2019-01-19T00:32:16Z
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@aral Would have been interesting to get your take on this rather than just post. I take from this a view on why GNU/Linux made it and Hurd failed. Pragmatism puts things in the public view that advance free software in a way that dogmatism never could.
(DIR) Post #3125473 by 361.xj9@social.sunshinegardens.org
2019-01-19T03:05:16.325878Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@nigeldgreen @aral there are better microkernels out there anyway. HURD isn't really relevant anymore. genode is an interesting take on microkernel os design. they actually have a method for reusing linux device drivers in their userspace device servers!https://genode.org/documentation/developer-resources/porting_device_drivers
(DIR) Post #3125607 by jalcine@playvicious.social
2019-01-19T03:10:31Z
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@lain @aral right. fuck that noise lol
(DIR) Post #3127242 by waterbear@scicomm.xyz
2019-01-19T02:47:28Z
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@aral I wonder -- is Torvalds saying this because it's what he really believes, or is it because becoming a privacy advocate would hurt his career, investments, or legacy in some way?
(DIR) Post #3127243 by clacke@libranet.de
2019-01-19T04:31:25Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@waterbear @aral Torvalds is just this guy who likes to code. He was never an activist and never held a public political opinion on anything that doesn't affect his chances to code.
(DIR) Post #3127974 by FimbulFlower@niu.moe
2019-01-19T00:21:20Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@aral he's just being clear about his scope. A new generation has to take the mantle and decloud our lives.
(DIR) Post #3127983 by phoe@functional.cafe
2019-01-19T00:27:22Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@aral At least Linus is honest that he doesn't care about his data.Compare to all the people who falsely claim that they value our privacy, where, in reality, they value our privacy... in US dollars.
(DIR) Post #3131907 by calisti@chaos.social
2019-01-19T00:29:30Z
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@aral Linus is weird.
(DIR) Post #3131908 by calisti@chaos.social
2019-01-19T00:30:04Z
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@aral Where u at? Is it already Feb 2019 in $1?
(DIR) Post #3131909 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T00:33:47Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@calisti Crazy world of magazine publishing :)
(DIR) Post #3142784 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T08:57:48Z
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@clacke @waterbear You don’t just code, it’s not like working out at the gym, you code _something_ and to state that you’re apolitical is to hold a political opinion; it just happens to be one that doesn’t favour social justice. “When you’re neutral in situations of injustice, you’ve chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Desmond Tutu.
(DIR) Post #3142786 by clacke@libranet.de
2019-01-19T14:00:32Z
2 likes, 2 repeats
@dgold @aral I am not disagreeing with your views, I'm just stating that Torvalds cares about nothing else when he codes than whether Linux can run on his hardware and run the programs he wants, and whether anybody broke userspace.Anyone who thought he stood for anything more than that has been projecting their own beliefs onto him. He does not work for user freedom and he does not work for social justice, and he never did.@waterbear @jalcine
(DIR) Post #3146352 by clacke@libranet.de
2019-01-19T15:43:52Z
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@dgold @aral @waterbear @jalcine Nothing to offer but a kernel to run GNU on.As far as I'm aware, there is no production-ready operating system kernel currently existing that has a stated goal beyond the technical, and I count security and process isolation as technical.
(DIR) Post #3146360 by clacke@libranet.de
2019-01-19T15:44:34Z
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@dgold @aral @waterbear @jalcine People who want to write software to directly affect society's power balances, and users' potential to express themselves and control their data, tend to write user-facing applications.Maybe society and social causes would benefit from kernel developers working with the aim to empower users, lift up the underprivileged and crush the monopolies. I'm just observing that generally they don't.
(DIR) Post #3147985 by clacke@libranet.de
2019-01-19T16:33:32Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@dgold > *Maybe* society would benefit from people working with the aim of empowering people, lifting up the underprivileged and crushing monopolies?That's not what I said. I said kernel developers. I think society would obviously benefit from people working to improve the state of the world.I'm sure there are areas of kernel development that have societal impact. Like, improving support for thousands of cores rather than reducing memory footprint obviously privileges certain uses. But it's less obvious than in many other places.If we're going to have amoral developers, and we will, maybe the kernel is a good place to stick them so they don't work on recommendation engines. 😀@jalcine
(DIR) Post #3152377 by Shamar@mastodon.social
2019-01-19T18:10:05Z
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Guys, wonderful exchange!@dgold a note: while a careful read of what @clacke said shows you mostly agree, even if you didn't would make your exchange more valuable, not less. For example if was valuable to me because I somehow agree with you both.I often paraphrase Clausewitz saying tha #technology is a prosecution of #politics by other means. So IMO programming IS always a political act.@jalcine @aral 1/
(DIR) Post #3152378 by Shamar@mastodon.social
2019-01-19T18:29:36Z
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@dgold @clacke @jalcine @aral However, so is #writing.A journalist can write about a party without being accused of being aligned with power.In general, you won't find many seriously democratic journalists blaming collegues for their openly stated opinions.They will debate on the craft (if a lie has been published as a truth and so on) but not about their visions.That's because it's too dangerous to end justifing censorship.2/
(DIR) Post #3152379 by Shamar@mastodon.social
2019-01-19T18:36:19Z
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@dgold @jalcine @aral I think we should really consider #programming (and #hacking in general) as a form of human expression, on par with writing and we should actively work to grant everybody access to it.If you think about it, that's the whole point of #FreeSoftware.Linus Torvalds is a hacker.As @clacke noticed we have GNU/Linux because of his work. So he surely had a profound political impact.Thanks to him we can move on.
(DIR) Post #3153420 by waterbear@scicomm.xyz
2019-01-19T18:55:03Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@aral @clacke "you code _something_" <-- to be fair, some code is more political than other code, and a kernel is pretty low on that ranking. Apps like Tor/I2P would be far higher...
(DIR) Post #3155578 by _emacsomancer@linuxrocks.online
2019-01-19T04:32:30Z
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@aral Perhaps Linus is fairly narrowly focussed on the kernel, and maybe that's okay. (I'm not relying on Linus himself for my privacy).
(DIR) Post #3155579 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T09:05:50Z
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@_emacsomancer Because whenever has the kernel of a thing defined the characteristics of the thing itself? It’s not like the seeds of a fruit define the fruit or anything ;) (You’re relying on Linus for your privacy every time you boot Linux. Privacy isn’t a function of a single layer in the stack but of the entire stack.)
(DIR) Post #3155580 by _emacsomancer@linuxrocks.online
2019-01-19T20:05:08Z
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@aral Sure, I suppose there's something to that. But Linus was talking about privacy vis-à-vis walled gardens and 'cloud', and these don't have much to do with the functioning of the kernel on my own personal machine. Obviously the kernel is powering some of these walled gardens and some of the 'cloud', but that's largely irrelevant. The dangers of these things don't have that much to do with their use of the kernel, any more than cars are 'contributing factors' of bank robbers.
(DIR) Post #3173878 by pho4cexa@tiny.tilde.website
2019-01-19T03:56:18Z
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@aral this echoes his 2014 statement about tivoization. he has given no fucks about user freedom for a while.Q: “Do you think that tivoization benefits me as a user, somehow?”A: "No. No I don’t. But that was not why I selected GPLv2. In my worldview, if you as the hardware maker make hardware that locks down the software, that has no impact on my decision as the software maker to give you the software. That was never the social contract I intended with Linux."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SofmXIYvGM&t=52m5s
(DIR) Post #3173888 by maddin@chaos.social
2019-01-19T07:49:22Z
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@aral So why is this important at all how Mr. Torvalds thinks about these issues? How does it change reality?
(DIR) Post #3173889 by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2019-01-19T08:51:05Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@maddin The entire history of our species is a statistically insignificant part of the universe; we’re a thin film of organic matter on a pebble in an infinite beach. Nothing any of us thinks or says or does is important or changes reality as far as the universe is concerned. And yet, everything each one of us thinks, and says, and does is of utmost importance to those around us and fundamentally impacts their lives. Nothing is important. Everything is important.