Post B4SEmXezxBc3gU17ZI by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
(DIR) More posts by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
(DIR) Post #B4SAI4HeD9NE4PJBgm by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 1 repeats
Well, that's depressing. :(https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopwareList of #FOSS projects using #slop (yes, including the Linux kernel and of COURSE systemd)#NoAI
(DIR) Post #B4SApzVsSDK17X8kL2 by jns@mastodon.linkerror.com
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane Linux is primarily a tool for fortune-500 companies first, and end-users like thee and me, last.Given the fact that most Linux contributors are on a corporate payroll, no surprise.Computing as we knew it, is dead. The future has been robbed from us.
(DIR) Post #B4SApzg9pzXrdPwxMW by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jnsOBI-WAN: That boy was our last hope.YODA: No. There is another.I mean, there's always the BSDs, Haiku, heck, the Commodore 64 is back, so anything can happen. ;)
(DIR) Post #B4SApzuKzGt6LOaHSq by jns@mastodon.linkerror.com
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane Hah :) Haiku gives me some hope. They do actively resist the ai nonsense, so far,... The c64 might be the better way to go :D Anything that needs to be general purpose enough to work with modern hardware is always going to be disadvantaged by having to reverse engineer proprietary drivers and hardware. There used to be enough people to somewhat keep up with that, and some shift in mentality at the manufacturer side to be a bit more reasonable with providing open drivers and/or documentation, but in the past few years or so, none of that is true anymore.I am seeing projects long considered stable fall apart due to losing maintainers left and right, and projects that are still alive get flooded with new developers pushing bad practices as if it were a personal crusade. The software landscape in general seems to be slowly unraveling into complete dysfunction.Sticking with an as-simple-as-possible stack where all parts can be maintained by one person seems like the most reasonable way out of the mess. (there's more capable options other than a c64 these days though ;) - reviving something like Wirth's project oberon on a somewhat more modern fpga would be a fun start.. )
(DIR) Post #B4SAq0C3vN49EMsR5k by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
0 likes, 1 repeats
@jns @rl_dane #NetBSD has a careful and deliberate developer selection, so the scenario where lots of corporate shills come in, invite more corporate shills, then push out or outnumber non-shills won’t happen.It’s not a coincidence that we’re not making bullshit excuses to de-support x86 and lesser known architectures, and that we’re not allowing “AI” anything.
(DIR) Post #B4SAtACt9SBd9glrai by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jnsIt's also worth looking into #CollapseOS and #DuskOShttps://collapseos.org/https://duskos.org/
(DIR) Post #B4SAtAOwQdpNl4PUNU by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns CollapseOS is the one with the restrictive licencing, no?
(DIR) Post #B4SAxSaqjVPDL21krw by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns (I also wonder whether it would not be better to choose an i8088 (possible subset) or Coldfire as base…)
(DIR) Post #B4SD6gzwkHQcWpIQlM by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsDoesn't seem so:collapseos-again $ head COPYING GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3, 29 June 2007 Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/> Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Preamble The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
(DIR) Post #B4SD6h9AC0nizPbn84 by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane yes, very restrictive, won’t touch
(DIR) Post #B4SDNcA9yZtaSH8tou by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsNXP seems to be favored by open hardware folks, so maybe?
(DIR) Post #B4SDNcRsug4dLFR3Ro by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns have I ever heard of it?
(DIR) Post #B4SDq4a1umj8hKoT32 by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsI need to spend some time to sit down and read/process the very thoughtful email Michael Dexter wrote me a couple years ago w.r.t. BSD licensing. (I was going to make it into a blog post, but then ran out of time due to family medical stuff).I don't totally understand the #BSD licensing mindset. In a historical perspective, I totally get it, as it was a University project, but I don't personally understand why a person wouldn't want their license to basically say, "don't use this code to abuse human beings."Tried to avoid overly rhetorical and drum-beating language in the previous paragraph to limited success. 😅
(DIR) Post #B4SDq4s6pZBlbPGuEC by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jnstheir license to basically say, "don't use this code to abuse human beings.No FOSS licence can say so, you know.
(DIR) Post #B4SEBEiDRIqICejWxU by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, it’s presumptuous to not put our meagre contributions out there for free without too many strings attached ("don’t sue me over a gift" and "keep my name attributed").Does that help understanding?
(DIR) Post #B4SEmXU0c2p38OsLRI by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsNXP? They're the ones that make the Coldfire architecture, according to wikipedia.If you're referring to the actual open hardware project that uses them, I believe the #MNTREform started out with an #NXP processor.
(DIR) Post #B4SEmXezxBc3gU17ZI by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
0 likes, 1 repeats
@rl_dane @mirabilos @jns NXP inherited (is that the right word for this?) Motorola’s stuff.What I’d love to see is a few GHz, few core m68k with a DDR4 controller that can have a full 4 gigs. All that software that can run reasonably well now, in 2026, on m68030 Amigas would absolutely fly.I’ll just copy and paste something I wrote a while ago:Imagine explaining this to someome in 1995:“In thirty years our computers will have sixteen threads of execution at 4.5 GHz each, with 4 IPC or better, along with 16 gigabytes of memory that can move data at 50 gigabytes a second. Practically everyone will have solid state storage that loads and saves at more than a gigabyte per second. Many computers will have GPUs capable of beating the fastest supercomputers in the 1995 world, and most of that capacity will be used for little more than just pushing pixels to a monitor.”“Wow! I bet Microsoft Word will load instantly!”“No. It’ll take longer to load than Word 5.1 takes to load on an Amiga with an ‘060 accelerator running ShapeShifter. It’ll be so slow that Microsoft decides to load key parts of Office when the system boots, but only if you have more RAM than can be directly accessed by a 32 bit processor.”
(DIR) Post #B4SEmXtB6SxIOSeRfc by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn I was merely thinking in terms of ISAs easy enough to implement in post-collapse chips but easy enough to program well for
(DIR) Post #B4SFGjTiZwtp1b8Xsu by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @jnsIt’s not a coincidence that we’re not making bullshit excuses to de-support x86 and lesser known architectures, and that we’re not allowing “AI” anything.What is the rationale for removing support for i686? It it just because all they care about is servers?
(DIR) Post #B4SFGjsX5gkUGYkMYy by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
0 likes, 1 repeats
@rl_dane @jns Some Debian developer who is also paid by a megacorp wrote about how supporting big endian and 32 bit are are too hard and incur too much “maintenance” work.Obviously, saying that is just saying that he’s a shitty programmer, but really, it’s an excuse for corporations to push Debian towards not supporting stuff that doesn’t directly support corporations.That’s an oversimplification, but in a nutshell, Debian is being led by corporate shills. This is how I feel about systemd, too - it seems to prioritize server use above everything else, not infrequently to the specific detriment of other use cases.
(DIR) Post #B4SFGkAc0TD7AdCnk8 by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 1 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @jns> That’s an oversimplification, but in a nutshell, Debian is being led by corporate shills. This is how I feel about systemd, too - it seems to prioritize server use above everything else, not infrequently to the specific detriment of other use cases.I'm also getting that impression, as I'm sure @mirabilos is as well.We seem to be in the "MacOSification of Linux" phase of the corporate roadmap.This is good for some things, and bad for others. It explains why end-users are generally happy, and UNIX-loving nerds are livid. :/
(DIR) Post #B4SFRlIi8wW1rXFPgu by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn yes, Debian is pretty much run by Canonical and Red Hat/GNOME/fdo/systemd at this point, shoved into corpo-think ("all in a central gitlab, and we even use the vendor’s binaries for that", "no single maintainer any more, always teams", "delegates get yearly performance reviews but we’re not calling them that yet", etc.) and discussion culture is shot, plus a vocal minority is shoving slop in with no thought about the consequences
(DIR) Post #B4SFZUW4Qooc7gBLW4 by AnachronistJohn@zia.io
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns @mirabilos macOS is actually coming out as the least shitty of all options these day.Most people use computers for pre-packaged stuff like Zoom, video editors, browsers, et cetera, and an appliance with excellent hardware integration works very well for those uses, whereas open source OSes don’t.I can run stuff like that in VMs on my open source OS of choice (NetBSD), but I can’t get GPU acceleration because of the proprietary nature of GPUs and their drivers.So if I’m going to have some proprietary stuff, like GPU drivers from a big, evil company that acts like a monopoly, then why not just choose a proprietary device like a Mac that 1) has fewer problems and better battery life, 2) is openly antagonistic to the other huge, shitty corporations?I’m not a fan of many things about Apple, but are they more secure than Windows? Yes. Are they less shitty, less problematic and less pricey than NVIDIA? Yes. Can I open a shell and run whatever VMs I want? Yes. Is it ideal? No, but nothing else right now is closer.
(DIR) Post #B4SFZUhPkdtCgrUPCK by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @jns @rl_dane I’ve moved some of the "mandated evils" like office communication to (nōn-main) smartphones, where they can access few, if any, data
(DIR) Post #B4SFdpuUpbBldKg9R2 by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsI understand that FOSS is against restricting use (especially non-commercial restrictions), but I thought the thrust of the #GPL v3 was to fight against the "TiVOization" of Linux (making a closed product from open components).
(DIR) Post #B4SFdq7y1VxqJ6yuQq by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns GPLv3 was never about Linux, they made that clear from the beginning
(DIR) Post #B4SFroeAKEHXlkhqqm by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jnsKinda? I have to ruminate over it some more.I tend to be so anti-corporate, that the GPL makes more sense to me, but I'm open to thinking about it differently.
(DIR) Post #B4SFroupKHbqbQV9ou by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns corpos will find ways, licences are not the venue in which to fight them; FOSS is built on collaborating (tit-for-tat) on a large greater thing (or several, of course), not fighting
(DIR) Post #B4SRGWaFifquTzrPw8 by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @jns @mirabilosI had my time under the ultraviolet sun of the Reality Distortion Field.I am now inoculated. XDBut circa 2008? Absolutely the best workstation Unix, bar none.
(DIR) Post #B4SRGWn0xE3p7ZpbpQ by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn eh, MirBSD, 2008.
(DIR) Post #B4SRKWsaYtsQYgLYwq by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jns @AnachronistJohnBloody tragic. :(I know I've asked this, but I haven't gotten a conclusive understanding... what's wrong with DeVUAn? I know that it has some political undesirables involved, but I didn't get the impression that their leadership were whackos. Have you looked at them recently?
(DIR) Post #B4SRKX6liBDfGeyt3A by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @rl_dane @jns ugh, that’s the one where all the alt weirdos joined because of course.I also have absolutely 100% trust in that they lack sufficient tech expertise to support anything Debian actively drops.
(DIR) Post #B4SROxbl7yoac7aVOa by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @jns @AnachronistJohn I did recently look through their list of members again and, well, nobody with a Name.
(DIR) Post #B4SRfPRlOKsxaUkvQW by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @AnachronistJohn @rl_dane well one but he… dropped out.
(DIR) Post #B4SRwLCUQsYlLBgYOe by rl_dane@polymaths.social
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos @jns @AnachronistJohnMeaning you didn't recognize anyone, or nobody there was noteworthy?(or both? ;)
(DIR) Post #B4SRwLTVPcAeBxe8v2 by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AnachronistJohn @rl_dane @jns yes
(DIR) Post #B4SjKJiFJXYStgYcmO by jns@mastodon.linkerror.com
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rl_dane @mirabilos I've had similar thoughts wrt licensing in bsd-land. I also always favored copyleft licenses. It just makes sense in the original mindeset we had of: The software we write is a contribution to global human knowledge - thinking it was a cumulative re-usable thing. In such a context, copyleft is definitively more reasonable than permissive licenses, as permissive licenses don't mandate corporations stealing^H^H^Husing the code have to contribute back.The way things worked out in real life ended up being a bit different, unfortunately.Software became throw-away. These days, there's very very few devs actually willing to maintain anything older than a few years. Just look at how many people call old codebases 'crusty' and start new rewrites, as opposed to the number of people actually willing to take on maintenance of a larger codebase... Secondly, the clever hack copyleft used to use the copyright system against itself became defunct. Corporations steal whatever they want now, by having ai harvesting bots slurp up anything regardless of license, and having it regurgitated into codebases with an incompatible license, often closed-source.We're now living in a world where publishing ANY code online under ANY license is basically a gift to the corporate overlords. I still think copyleft is superior to permissive licensing, but then, Linux (and Linus) were always about 'Open source' first, not 'Free Software'. They were always pro-corporate, and it should be no surprise that the Linux landscape is now seeing a massive shift towards permissive licensing over copyleft. That said, over the years I've come to realize that software licensing is secondary to the community aspect.Currently, the BSD-community is more user-focused than corporate-focused, whether that is a function of being less popular or not is not as relevant than the fact that the signal-to-noise ratio among the BSD's is better. That's ultimately what matters most.For both the BSD's /AND/ Linux, the software licensing aspect is more historical happenstance than a result of the spirit of the community.
(DIR) Post #B4SjKK12BgaFpxLd44 by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane I arrive at BSD “copycentre” style licencing instead of GNU “copyleft” style licencing from the same ideas and thought paths, incidentally. (See my other post explaining a bit more of the mindset.)I do not think copyleft a “clever hack” (nor, actually, really effective; there’s been a legal analysis posted to some Python mailing list (I probably bookmarked somewhere) that shows the GPL is effectively equivalent to the LGPL unless the other part is indeed very derived), and I’ll restate that licences are not the correct venue to fight or even to work on changes to copyright law.(This not meant as “fighting words”, or even a rebuttal, just as explaining where BSDish people may come from.)
(DIR) Post #B4SoNuBYfJ68efnYh6 by gumnos@bsd.cafe
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mirabilos I find it odd that folks get their knickers in a twist over licensing. It's up to the person writing the code to determine what they feel is an acceptable license for their creation (whether a BSD/Apache/MPL or GPL variant or even proprietary); and then it's up to the individual/user to determine whether they find that license acceptable for the purposes they desire.If generic-you (not specific Mirabilos-you) don't like the terms of a license don't accept it, or create your own code and license it how you see fit? 🤷 @jns @rl_dane
(DIR) Post #B4SoNuPNpu9nLYGbFA by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@gumnos @jns @rl_dane but that is precisely what happened here(btw, mirabilos)
(DIR) Post #B4TEtwb5paXuD5gDvU by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jns @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn Debian has a bonus show running at the moment. We’re in the campaigning period for the next project leader (one-year term). There’s one candidate, who has a rather weak platform IMO and whom I will likely not vote for (not the first time I ranked NOTA* above candidates, even all candidates, both in settings when there was one and in settings when there were multiple, so this is normal and merely expression of a personal preference). But the candidate is not white-cis-male and therefore currently under heavy attack by Lunduke and others, who are spamming the mailing list… *sigh…* humans are so annoying, cannot cats please take world rule already?*) NOTA = none of the above / FD = further discussion, the “something else” option of Debian’s Condorcet voting flavour