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

Free software discussion on Byte Into It, 2012-07-18
by Ben Finney 21 Jul '12

21 Jul '12

Howdy all, On 3RRR's Byte Into It on Wednesday 2012-07-18, Georgia and I had a couple of discussions about software freedom: * I had a long discussion of an article in The H, going in-depth about how software freedom is hugely restricted at the level of commiunication on the cellular phone network. * In a discussion of Googple Maps, I raised the alternative of Open StreetMap applications. <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/webpage/byte-into-it-18-july-2012> -- \ “It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” | `\ —Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire | _o__) | Ben Finney

1 0

Boycott apps
by Russell Coker 21 Jul '12

21 Jul '12

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boycottsopa.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theboycottapp.boycott Above are the URLs for a couple of Android apps for boycotting companies that support SOPA. I was a bit disappointed to find no other Boycott apps. There had been reports of an app to Boycott the Koch brothers and I'd expected the Occupy movement to have done something in this space. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

1 0

Minutes (was: Next meeting: Thursday the 19th of July)
by Alex Fraser 20 Jul '12

20 Jul '12

Hi all, Thanks for a great meeting last night! We started off the night with some amazing neenish tarts, made by Bianca. I think I'm still on a sugar high. Below: the minutes! == Previous action items == - BG to contact The Astor re: DRM in cinema; she wrote to them, but they haven't responded. == SOPA == We started with the boring stuff first, to get it out of the way. Basically, SOPA was a scary proposed change to US law that was defeated by Internet activism, but now small bits of it are making a comeback. Unfortunately no one had read the article [1], so the discussion fell kind of flat. == Games == - An exciting, upcoming open video game console [2]. It's set to be very cheap, and the organisers have already raised over $5M. But, there are some big hurdles to get over, like the lack of big name games that the major consoles have. Still, the sheer number of backers shows that lots of people are wanting to see a change in the games industry. Hopefully it will be a success. It was suggested that we could buy one for the group to share, as a way of showing support. - STEAM is coming to GNU/Linux. It was suggested that this could be a part of a plan to transition to a Linux-based games console in the future, that Valve might manufacture. But anyway, the porting of STEAM to Linux was seen as a generally good thing, as it would ease the transition to GNU/Linux for a lot of people (not having to reboot to play games). == Social Events == As discussed on the mailing list, and at dinner last time, the group is interested in having some social meetings - not just discussion groups. Apart from being fun for current members, this could be a good way to attract more people. Suggestions: - Gaming sessions (e.g. LAN games) - Battle for Wesnoth (beware: highly addictive) - Alien Arena Reloaded - Open Arena - BZ Flag - Free software trivia night. Might be extended to "free culture", to allow more diverse teams. - Hacking sessions: code sprints, bug hunting, translation or documentation. Note: doesn't have to be about programming! Suggested venues: - LUV beginner workshops - VPAC training room (where we currently host our meetings; might not work for trivia) It was suggested that the social gatherings could replace some of our discussion groups. This could be done to a regular schedule, e.g. every third month. The plan is to do this in September and see how it goes. SO: come to the September meeting (on the 20th) for something fun! == Logistics == - Sometimes FSM hosts presentations; it was suggested that these could be recorded and posted online. Adam recently bought a camera, which we could put to good use. There are tripods available in the meeting room. More generally, we could record the discussions that we have - but it's not clear how interesting it would be to people who weren't at the meeting. I tried recording a couple of minutes on my phone, but it was (unsurprisingly) poor quality. There are other options, though: some members have good recording equipment, and there is some in the meeting room too. - It was suggested that FSM's wiki page be used for meeting announcements, to allow them to be updated more easily. == FSF: Secure boot vs restricted boot == The Free Software Foundation is hosting a petition to try to get manufacturers not to lock their computers to only run Windows [3]. We discussed whether it would be OK for FSM to sign it as an organisation. == Phones == - RedPhone is now free software (GPL3) [5]. It can be used to encrypt voice calls on Android devices. Pretty rad! - Openmoko is about to ship a hardware upgrade featuring a faster processor and 3G support. The company is providing bounties for bug fixes. Not sure what their business model is. == Action Items == * AF to talk to BF about contacting the Astor... * BS to write to mailing list about supporting OUYA. * BS to write to mailing list about holding a hacking session. * BS to bring up topic of FSM's secure boot petition on mailing list. == Topics for Next Month == - Eaterprises and the Open Food Web by Kirsten Larsen - Free software business models, including the use of trademarks (e.g. restriction of the use of the word "Firefox") (These topics may be subject to change :) [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/house-quiety-reintroduces-piece-sopa [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-cons… [3] http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement [4] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/ [5] http://www.whispersys.com/redphone-now-open-source.html

1 0

Weekend activities
by Adam Bolte 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

Hey all, It came up today at dinner that possibly some people might be interested in getting together for activities that are not strictly about discussing free software. Some ideas I have (off the top of my head) are: * Basic game development. I remember at a previous Software Freedom day there was a presentation somebody gave about all the mini-games he had made with Pygame, and it looked a lot of fun. We could compete individually or work as a team (some people on graphics, some on code, some recording sound effects and sourcing/creating music, etc.). FYI, I'm a Python newbie but I have messed around with the Pygame examples a little. I also suck at graphics but don't mind trying. :) * Creating some kind of short regular Free Software webcast or some such where we could record technical presentations on things like "How to run SaaS without giving up your freedom" (eg. a quick ownCloud tutorial/preview) and/or news items such as "What's new in the world of free software?". Think of something along the lines of the Linux Action Show, albeit shorter, and focusing on free software as opposed to "Linux" and without all the RMS hate. * LAN gaming using free software (eg, Nexuiz, Frozen Bubble, BoW). I'm always up for that. * Polishing free software for non-devs (performing usability studies, finding and submitting bugs, writing/improving/translating documentation and wiki pages, etc.). * Android application development. eg. We've discussed improvements that need to be made to F-Droid at previous meetings, so maybe we can work towards identifying and adding more free software that currently only exists in the Android Marketplace or Play or whatever they call it these days. I imagine these kinds of activities might work best on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon or something when there's more time, and people can stick around for as long or as little as they want. I have no ideas for a venue at this time. Is there any interest out there in any of the above, or does anyone have any other suggestions? Cheers, Adam

5 10

Next meeting: Thursday the 19th of July
by Alex Fraser 16 Jul '12

16 Jul '12

Hi everyone, The next Free Software Melbourne meeting will be held this Thursday, the 19th of July at 6:00pm. We were originally going to talk about Eaterprises and free software business models, but they have had to be postponed until next month. Instead, discussion topics include: 1. OUYA, an upcoming open game console [1] 2. SOPA still kicking [2] There should be time for more topics; feel free to bring them up on the night. As usual, we will meet for two hours in the training room at VPAC from 6pm. Building 91 [-1] 110 Victoria Street Carlton South We'll head out for dinner after the meeting to Classic Curry on Elizabeth St. See you then, Alex [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-cons… [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/house-quiety-reintroduces-piece-sopa [-1] http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/

1 0

Apple to block OS upgrade of old 64-bit Mac's to Mountain Lion
by Chris Samuel 12 Jul '12

12 Jul '12

Hi folks, Someone I know on Twitter posted this link: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/confirmed-mountain-lion-sends-some-64-… # Information included with the first Mountain Lion GM now # corroborates the connection to 32-bit graphics drivers as # the culprit. While Mountain Lion is compatible with any Mac # capable of running a 64-bit kernel, the kernel does not # support loading 32-bit kernel extensions (KEXTs). Furthermore, # Macs with older EFI versions that are not 64-bit clean won't # load Mountain Lion's 64-bit only kernel. # # As you might have already guessed, graphics drivers are KEXTs # under OS X. And the GPUs in some of those early 64-bit Macs were # deprecated before 64-bit KEXTs became common. Since those older # drivers are 32-bit, Mountain Lion won't load them. We believe # Apple decided it was better to draw the line in the sand for some # older machines rather than invest the resources into updating the # drivers for these older GPUs. So some people will find that they won't be able to upgrade their Mac's to the new MacOSX and so may wish to experiment with alternatives rather than stick to the older OS. -- Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC

1 0

Free software discussion on Byte Into It, 2012-07-04
by Ben Finney 06 Jul '12

06 Jul '12

Howdy all, On 3RRR's Byte Into It this week, we discussed free-software related topics quite a bit. * The Declaration of Internet Freedom. * How is software freedom in conflict with Secure Boot? The FSF petitions hardware vendors to support users disabling the lock. * Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations need to be more transparent, US senators are beginning to come out and say. * The Twitter Transparency Report shines more light on who is asking for users's information and taking down users's content. * The 2012-06-30 leap second caused trouble for some Linux machines. <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/webpage/byte-into-it-4-july-2012> -- \ “Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free | `\ than Christianity has made them good.” —Henry L. Mencken | _o__) | Ben Finney

1 0

Australia To Review Copyright Fair Use
by Brian May 04 Jul '12

04 Jul '12

I saw it on Slashdot, so it must be true! http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/07/02/2332254/australia-to-review-copyrigh… -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

3 2

Minutes from the last meeting
by Alex Fraser 03 Jul '12

03 Jul '12

Hi all, Well, I had lost the minutes. But they have been recovered! and they are: == Topics == 1. Picking your battles 2. Ben Sturmfels' talk on software patents at a recent IP Australia forum in Sydney 3. Buggy Browser Blackmail 4. Fedora and Secure Boot == Discussion == - Briefly discussed KL's project, Eaterprises [1]. Looking forward to more discussion on the topic next time she comes to the meeting. - AF didn't have time to contact the Astor re: DRM; BG agreed to do it instead. === 1. Picking your battles === - Eric S. Raymond wrote an interesting article on determining importance when pushing for open source products [3]. - Eric is from the "open source" camp -> emphasis on reliability. - The article generally blasted RMS. - The categories of harm given in the article are useful, as is the idea of "importance". - Specific examples were not so good. - Organisations already do this, e.g. Mozilla has all but given up on WebM === 2. Ben's talk === - BS approached IP Australia; offered to be involved in future. They contacted him and asked him to talk in Sydney to a room full of patent attorneys. - Title: "Software Patents: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". - Ben spoke about "the bad". The talk went well (video [4]). After the talk, there were a lot of questions from the floor, and a good discussion. - "The good" was given by the guy who recently won a patent case against Microsoft for some DRM technology. The impression left for Ben was that he got a lot of money, but his quality of life suffered during the long legal battle (10 years, overseas?) - "The ugly" was a talk about stats, etc. given by a patent examiner. - It was a great learning experience for Ben, especially for how to respond to questions such as "how will the little innovators survive without patents". - The talk was shashdotted, and appeared on IT news web sites. The stories included decent quotes from Ben. - All in all, it was really good air time. - If anyone has ideas about action against patents, talk to Ben! === 3. Buggy Browser Blackmail === - The web used to suck. It's better now, but the journey has been horrible - largely due to IE. - Debugging web sites on IE is a huge time drain. - If it had been free software, perhaps the situation would have been better: people could have fixed the bugs (e.g. lack of compliance with standards). - We are now heading in an interesting direction, where the major browsers *are* free. But, if a monopoly is held by a free software browser, will there be problems similar to when IE dominated? - Kogan have an "IE tax": if you're using IE when you check out, you get charged extra! Some software developers at FSM also have an extra fee they charge if the customer wants IE to be supported. === 4. Fedora and Secure Boot === - If a computer manufacturer wants to display the Windows 8 logo (indicating compatibility), the computer must have a locked bootloader. This is supposed to combat malware, however it could stop a user from being able to install a free software operating system. - The user can disable it on Intel platforms, but not on ARM. - Fedora is buying a signing key from Verisign via Microsoft. - We discussed the implications of this for a while. - It seems that a key is not required for user space programs - only for kernel-space code and things that interact with hardware. Apparently, this will make it difficult to support features such as user-space video mode switching. - Some manufacturers may not pursue the Windows 8 logo. Vote with your money! == Action Items == - BG to contact the Astor about their recent problems with DRM [2]. Would they like to come and speak with us, or to BF on his radio show on RRR? == Next Meeting == Thu 19th of July. Topics: - Eaterprises - Free software business models, including the use of trademarks (e.g. restriction of the use of the word "Firefox"). See you there :) [1] http://www.eaterprises.com.au/ [2] http://astortheatreblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/what-happened-last-night/ [3] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4371 [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzg-h9hXn_I

1 0

secure boot discussion at last meeting
by Bianca Gibson 02 Jul '12

02 Jul '12

Hi all, Last meeting when we were talking about secure boot someone (I can't remember who) said that fedora would need to publicly release their signing key. I thought that was an incorrect interpretation of the GPLv3 at the time, and now the FSF whitepaper on the topic confirms what I was thinking. They talk about it in the context of the ubuntu plan. "...they are afraid of falling out of compliance with GPLv3, they plan to drop GRUB 2 on Secure Boot systems, in favor of another bootloader with a different license that lacks GPLv3’s protections for user freedom. Their stated concern is that someone might ship an Ubuntu Certified machine with Restricted Boot (where the user cannot disable it). In order to comply with GPLv3, Ubuntu thinks it would then have to divulge its private key so that users could sign and install modified software on the restricted system." "*This fear is unfounded and based on a misunderstanding of GPLv3*. We have not been able to come up with any scenario where Ubuntu would be forced to divulge a private signing key because a third-party computer manufacturer or distributor shipped Ubuntu on a Restricted Boot machine. In such situations, the computer distributor – not Canonical or Ubuntu – would be the one responsible for providing the information necessary for users to run modified versions of the software." The FSF are "the primary interpreter of the license in question, is the copyright holder of GRUB 2, the main piece of GPLv3-covered software at issue." All quotes from FSF white paper available at http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-publishes-whitepaper-with-recommendations-for-f… . Bianca

3 2