February 2019 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Purism Librem 5 update: Unexpected good news!
by Ben Finney 27 Feb '19

27 Feb '19

Howdy all, The free-software handheld product from Purism, the Librem 5, is on track for delivery again after an unexpected resolution of the heat issues they were experiencing. […] So a lot of research was made, and our development team started evaluating the i.MXM8 Mini to see if it could be used within our requirements–free software only, no binary blobs, mainline based software stacks. And then the month of February began, and something else unexpectedly happened: NXP released a new software stack for our first CPU choice, the i.MX 8M–and all of the power consumption and heating issues suddenly disappeared! <URL:https://puri.sm/posts/massive-progress-exact-cpu-selected-minor-shipping-adjustment/> The post also gives a good progress update and a video of a hardware prototype. Looking forward to receiving a handheld designed with modern hardware, entirely free drivers, and full communication features! -- \ “Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who | `\ speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” —Ambrose | _o__) Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_, 1906 | Ben Finney

3 2

Sorry, just testing again
by Tatiana Lenz 22 Feb '19

22 Feb '19

Sorry, just testing our email redirection again

1 0

Second review of Assistance and Access Act, deadline 22 February (Friday!) for submissions
by Les Kitchen 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hi fellow FSM-ites, I recently found out by accident, listening to Geraldine Doogue (spelling?) on ABC Radio National, that the deadline for public submissions to the review of the Assistance and Access Act is this coming Friday, 22nd February, only a few days away. I knew that the review was coming, but I wasn't expecting it so soon, and I must say it caught me by surprise. So if we want to do a joint submission as FSM, then we really have to get moving on it pretty quickly. I was talking to Tatiana over the weekend, and she suggested we could work on this at our FSM meeting on Thursday. Even so, we'd need to do a fair bit of preparation beforehand. The current government webpage for making submissions (and some information) is: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence… There you can also look at submissions that have already been made. That would be useful to see what people are saying. Not to be confused with this is the old webpage for the previous review from last year: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence… But similarly that provides access to the public submissions that were made to that earlier review, which also might be worth reading if you have the time. (I made a submission to that review, and got an emailed acknowledgement for it. But strangely I can't find it on the list. I don't know what happened there, and right now I don't have the time to track that down.) One complication is that I'm away in NSW at the moment. My Dad, who's 90, had a fall week before last. Luckily no broken bones, but concussion and bruising. He's been discharged from hospital to return home. But it's been pretty disruptive, and I need to stay with him for a bit while he recuperates. That puts limits on how much I can contribute to our submission this time. I'll try to do as much as I can, but I'll have to leave it to the rest of you to move this along in time. I guess that's about all for now. — Smiles, Les.

4 5

Correct Meetup date! - 21st February 2019 - All about Mastodon
by Michael Verrenkamp 07 Feb '19

07 Feb '19

Sorry, please ignore the first announcement. The date was wrong. My wife pointed out that I am an idiot and I agree. :D The meetup is the 21st of February, not the 14th. --------------------------------- All about Mastodon A lot of people have not heard of Mastodon, it is a social media service similar to Twitter that you can self host. Its various separately operated user bases are federated across many different sites and its de-centralised nature can mean it will potentially be a lot more resilient compared with other online services. We will show you through it all and why you might be interested in using it. We will also have the Gnews as usual and discussion about the 'Assistance and Access Bill' that will impact all of us. This is a non-technical event and all are welcome. The event is on 6:30PM - Thursday 21st February 2019 at Electron Workshop; 31 Arden Street North Melbourne. Doors open at 6pm and the event will go through to 8pm. Afterwards we will have dinner in North Melbourne as usual and we can continue any discussion that will have arisen.

1 0

FSM Meetup - 14th February 2019 - All about Mastodon
by Michael Verrenkamp 07 Feb '19

07 Feb '19

All about Mastedon A lot of people have not heard of Mastodon, it is a social media service similar to Twitter that you can self host. Its various separately operated user bases are federated across many different sites and its de-centralised nature can mean it will potentially be a lot more resilient compared with other online services. We will show you through it all and why you might be interested in using it. We will also have the Gnews as usual and discussion about the 'Assistance and Access Bill' that will impact all of us. This is a non-technical event and all are welcome. The event is on 6:30PM - Thursday 14th February 2019 at Electron Workshop; 31 Arden Street North Melbourne. Doors open at 6pm and the event will go through to 8pm. Afterwards we will have dinner in North Melbourne as usual and we can continue any discussion that will have arisen.

1 0