Freedom Dreams

So, I decided to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout. I’m writing this post in it….. vvveeeerrrryyyy slowly. I’ve just about got to the point where I can use Dvorak to chat on IRC, but I still have a deep sypathy for those who can’t touch type.

I am trying Dvorak just for the fun of it - its supposed to be better than qwerty, anh although I think that its probably true, I don’t see any benefits yet due to the steep learning curve… I guess thats how many people feel about Linux or free software in general. Fear of change is not completely irrational… effort is required to make that change. All we can try to do is reduce the work involved as much as possible; but more importantly, wemust make it evident to people that their effort will be worthwhile.

I would write a bit more, but it is painstakingly slow…..

In ether news, the third episode of Freedom Socks, my free software podcast, has been released. Have a listen and please tell me what you think.

So, yesterday I finally installed gnewsense on my two machines. It was doing some weird stuff, and I didn’t know why, so I was going to write an irate blog post. However, I now know what was going on, but it brings me to the same conclusion - Gnewsense is not a viable alternative for most people.

So, I install it on both of these machines. Well, on one machine ethernet didn’t work, but I had tested it with the livecd and expected this.  The wireless card on my other machine also required firmware, but it worked out of the box with gnewsense. Before we all give gnewsense a pat on the back for having hardware support, let my explain what happened when I installed updates - both the wireless and the sound stopped working. A package had been removed, since it contained firmware - now this makes sense, and is the way gnewsense works in order to fuffill its goal, but it means two things:

1. The gnewsense deltah-h cd I was using contained the non-free software required by my graphics card. Yes, let me say that again the gnewsense cd contains propreitary software.
2. Regreesions are happening, quite major ones where sound or 3D stops working for many or all people, which is just not something most people will accept, without caring an awful lot about the ethical issues. Not only this, but if someone asks why some of these regreesions happened, you must tell them: sorry, we lied to you - gnewsense wasn’t actually all free software, so we had to remove the bits that weren’t.
   Now, I think most of the people who are ready to use gnewsense will understand the technical difficulty in separating out all propreitary software - but for new GNU/Linux users it will just sound highly hypocrytical, and make gnewsense seem even more pointless than they already though it was.

Now, there was something that rms said in his talk at manchester about people being cowards if they don’t use 100% free software. These are words that I’ve thought about a few times - he is calling 99.99% of the population cowards. But, then again, it is in Stallman’s nature to say such things. His point is partially valid, IMHO, but it is more laziness than cowardice.

We should be trying to introduce people to free software by starting off with gnewsense, as someone on irc said - it is a journey. Think about it - fair trade and free range groups concentrate on getting people to buy increasing ammounts of ethical food, rather than saying that people should switch 100% straight away.  We need to first show people firefox, then openoffice, then ubuntu, then gnewsense.

So, yes, the message of this blog is that giving out gnewsense cds to windows users will just give them a perception of a technically inadequate and hypocritical system. Far better to give them ubutnu cds, explain its weaknesses to them, and let them realise the need for gnewsense themselves.

As anyone who has read other posts on this blog will know I feel quite strongly about software freedom. I try to use exclusively free software as far as I possibly can. However, unfortunately I do still use some propreitary software, for various reasons.

Nonetheless, I wish to strive to become better in this respect. Recently, I took a look at the 100% free software distribution gnewsense. Thing is, I’m still rather undecided about whether non-free firmware is a problem (topic for a future blogpost maybe) and gnewsense breaks the network cards on both my pcs, rendering it useless for me, until I buy new network cards of course (It also means that I have no compiz, due to graphics card firmware, and the fact that glx has been stripped out (this annoys me, no truly free 3D acceleration yet :S), but I can live without this. The internet, I basically can not).

And, there is also the fact that my belief in the importance of free software has been wavering a bit (I know it is important, I’ve just been wondering how important - I’ll elaborate more in athoer blog post). But, I decided I was at a point where I wanted to try to remove all the tradiotional non-free software. By this I mean software that is regared by everyone by non-free, is not GPL’d etc. In fact most distributions have this content in a separate repository.

On Ubuntu (which I use on my main PC), this software is put into the multiverse. I decided today that I would cut myself off from this repository completely. It should be no harm for me, as I do not use any of these apps, flash and java were installed, but only for other people (gnash and icedtea ftw). However, the thing that is really annoying me is that by disabling multiverse, it is not only non-free software that I can not download, it is also perfectly free software with some sort of legal problem (patents, DMCA). The two groups of software are not the same thing for me (being a freedom lover and patent and DMCA hater), so it is a great inconvenience if the two are just lumped together!!!!!!

I want to be able to have all free software enabled (including that with patent issues etc.) but no non-free software. With ubuntu, I can’t do this - all I can do is pick debs out of multiverse by hand! For this reason, I’m thinking of switching to a distro that does not lump non-free and possibly troublesome together, the obvious choice, I think would be Debian (Sid, I think). Already, I had realised I would be comfortable with debian (I use it on another machine), but given that ubuntu is considered more user friendly and will do anything Debian will do, I had no incentive to switch. Now I do!

I wonder if I can update my current hardy installation to Sid. Its probably not advisable, but given that I have a fallback Kubuntu partion, I might just give it a go, for the hell of it.

Another thing I was wondering, is that I do decide to go freedom crazy (and hate non-free firmware). Then what distro would I choose? Not gnewsense I don’t think, because that doesn’t ship the free software that ubuntu lumps in multiverse. Annoyingly, there doesn’t seem to be a freefree distro based on pure debian. Maybe gnewsense could be tweaked to be based on debian (project for the summer holdiays maybe).

Okay, I just spoke to the gnewsense guys, and it would probably be easier to create a “free multiverse repo”. So, I might not switch to Debian afterall. Then again I might. And everything could change if I manage to buy a new ethernet card. Watch this space
Self referencial note: This blog is almost like a conversation with myself. I either leave too long before writing or am still making up my mind whilst I’m writing. The latter is definitely better though.

Yesterday, me and a couple of friends went to see a talk in Manchester by Richard Stallman (rms), the founder of the free software movement. I’m not sure quite how much the other two got from the experience, but I certainly found it very interesting - although I knew many of the things he said, it was the way he explained them, and it also provoked me to think about certain things.

One of the biggest things was Richards unfaltering commitment to the four freedoms as moral imperatives. One thing he explained particularly well, that I’d known for a while, but found difficult to explain was the problem with free software not allowing people to do certain tasks (e.g. use a printer, due to the technical incompleteness) and yet still claim to be liberating them. His explanation, which I will use from now on, is that something like this is not about freedom, it is about convenience. The two are completely separate, even though people are sometimes try to lump them together.

Of course, that then raises the question for me personally: How committed am I? What inconveniences am I prepared to face? This was really brought home to me by part of his talk specifically about schooling. Not only did one of his apologies compare roughly to my own experience (free software is great for learning for children who want to know how stuff works, unfortunately, I was still part of the proprietary software world during most of my childhood, so I missed out). But, also he was talking about how exclusively Free Software is an absolute must in schools, for four reasons:

• Its much cheaper, and schools have tight budgets as it is
• To prevent proprietary software companies from locking in, or “addicting” children
• Given that the four freedoms are important, the most important people to teach these ethics to are our children. Rms gave his example that children should be willing to and able to share anything they bring to class, whether that be sweets or software
• Free software provides a much better way for eager students to learn how software works (as explained above)

However, what struck me most, was again, how he talked about achieving it. That those who care about Free Software, such as myself, should refuse to use the proprietary software in schools. I’m currently wary of doing this, especially for diplomacy, but it is certainly something I should consider doing. Then, there’s the point of whether I can avoid proprietary software entirely - really, it is something I should aim for, and am working towards, but when am I going to take the plunge entirely.

Something I found interesting, especially as it will be one of ADFA’s campaigns, is his stance on webapps. Using computers in the way he does, he sees no need for them, and points out that you are giving up a certain amount of control to your data (whether the server runs free software or not), something that I had pointed out on the ADFA project. However, the thing that I had not thought about, was the fact that these apps run software on the users machine, in the form of languages such as javascript. It is these scripts that must be under a free software license for webapps to be 4-freedoms-compatible. I’m still not sure whether this is a terribly big issue, but it is definitely something to campaign for - particularly since freeing these scripts would not cause much loss to the companies, escpecially as the source code is already availible anyway.

One less important, but interesting thing I took away from the talk was a fresh look on the whole Linux naming controversy. What I am trying to campaign for is free software as a right, not just Linux as a system or open source being good technically. Since what I am striving for is most similar to GNU/FSF than any other project, using the name GNU should really be a good thing. My main issue with GNU/Linux was that it sounded technical and off-putting. However, I hope to use the term “GNULinux” from now on (to avoid the “slash”). Really this is not so off-putting, especially since a gnu is also an animal, so those who won’t appreciate “funny” acronyms don’t need to know about them. And, if you are trying to market simply as a software product, then just use the distro name like Ubuntu - however, I don’t just want to market a product, so from now on, I hope to make an effort to mention GNU. Linux might be shorter to say, but surely we can at least use GNULinux as the “full name” for the system.

Another minor, but useful thing was how he answered the question about the loss of jobs if the whole world moved towards free software (aka. free software is communist, developers can’t make money etc.). He pointed out something I’d not quite grasped. Within the computing market, jobs actually developing software are only a small section, and only a small section in that is creating proprietary software (the rest is building custom software, which as long as the one user of the software has the four freedoms is completely ethical - giving people software and restricting there use of it is immoral, but not sharing at all is just a bit mean). The worse that could possibly happen is that this small section within a section would disappear. Not a problem at all, considering that it is entirely possible to get jobs developing free software! Someone raised the issue of one person propreitary software developers no longer being able to make money, and rms pointed out the argument we too often overlook - that nobody has a right to make money if they are exploiting people (in fact, he told the person that he hoped their business failed!). Free software is about encouraging a completely different mindset and ethos.

Finally, after watching Richard auction  I’ve re-realised it would be good to read some of the free software movements literature. So now, I want to get my hand on Free as in Freedom and Free Software Free Society, as well as the ancap books Wikiacc mentioned in response to my previous posts.

PS: I left this a day before writing this. I reawlly ought to improve my blogging style and use a notebook or something.

PSS: Point in case, I’ve already found myself adding a major paragraph to this, I’ll probably find myself adding more to this as it comes to my head. I need a small pocket sized notebook!

Not only do I believe that free software, or freedomware as I like to call it, is the moral way of doing software, making me more or less a subscriber to the FSFs views.

However, I have only been aware of freedomware for a couple of years now. I really do appreciate the freedom it gives me, to be in control over my own computer; to use my computer how I want.

Also, I’m increasingly of the belief that growing up with propeitary software was actually bad for me. I am, and always been inquisitive. From when I first had a computer, I wanted to find out how stuff worked, and how I could do the same thing. For example, not soon after I started regularly using the internet, I was right clicking and selecting view source to copy and tweak parts for my own HTML documents. As a result of that and the following learning process I am not quiet proficient in XML and can also code my own PHP scripts.

However, the big thing that Windows, and proprietary software in general prevents you from doing is looking at the source code. This restricted me greatly I’m sure of it. I still remember my futile attempts to run code in the same way other applications were run. I thought that the “proper” ways of doing it cost money, lots of money (most development tools are hundreds of pounds). Therefore, I was limited to batch scripting and yabasic etc.

Its so painful in hindsight to realise that wonderful things that were out there. Open code that I could look at and modif, just like I did web pages. Free (in both senses) compilers so that I could make my own applications that ran in the same way as professionals.  However, I could not see these things - I only knew the proprietary world I had entered in. I could not create, innovate or learn to my full potential because of these restrictions, at a time, as a child were I could have developed greatly.

Yes, I truly believe proprietary software hindered my personal development, and I will forever loathe it for that.

Note: This post is from the point of view of someone trying to avoid proprietary software because I believe proprietary software is immoral (many of the things here help explain this). If you don’t share this view, this post probably shouldn’t concern you.
Also, if you are trying to avoid it, like me, then you might want to consider switching to Gnash and IcedTea for Flash and Java. (These are what I use)

On Saturday I recorded a podcast with two of the other people from Teenlug: Zach (zoglesby) and Rob (x_rob). Due to the distances we live apart, VOIP was the only option and we ended up using the propeitary Skype.

Its true that an alternative exists, the open protocol SIP and its many open source clients. But the truth is, these aren’t really that good. There is no consistent text chat, no presence notification and much of the time, the sound quality is abysmal (which can be seen in the other podcast I was in, TuxTeens). Also, because these are normally small projects, Phone to PC calls are either not available or not competitively priced.

So, there you have one of the reasons why I use propeitary software, despite not wanting to, even at home. The others are compatibility testing (one of the main things I code is webpages, so I use IEs4linux) and programs I need for school - luckily this is only one program (containing information about Physics) which runs perfectly under wine.

For the second thing, I would recommend free website snapshoting tools, but these only do so much. Whenever I code something ajaxy I need to test it in a live browser. However, I think I am probably prepared to live with this in the mean time. It is a symptom of other peoples dependency on non-free software, not so much mine.

The VOIP problem is, of course, the tricky one. I am in danger of becoming locked into Skype, because everyone else having the conversation needs to use the same protocol. However, I don’t find this such a major issue as most of the people I want to talk to are in favor of open source, and would be happy to use a good open source alternative. The thing is, most of the alternatives are nowhere near the quality (interface or sound) of skype. If people are to be convinced to use freedom respectful, this is something we need to improve.

Of course, it would make sense to build upon the existing technologies. One way to do it would be to build upon the XMPP protocol (used by Jabber), which provides text messaging and presence notification, and add audio and video. This is what google did with Google Talk, and although this is a proprietary program, Google are working towards an open source library. However, FOSS support for this protocol is experimental.

Or you could take SIP and attach text messaging and presence notification. This is what a project called openwengo are doing. This is the project I am most interested in, because it should be compatible with other skype clients (although the added bits would not work) and it doesn’t involve using experimental versions of kopete etc.

Edit: Although Wengo has precense notification, it does not have text chat.
However, to properly test these technologies, I need someone (maybe even several people) to call.
Any volunteers?

I believe that in an ideal world, we should all have freedom over our computing environment. And, I want to work to help achieve this dream.

However, I don’t feel like I’ve done much recently to further the causes of Free Software, despite that being something I want to do. Therefore, I am trying to think of ways I can do this. These fall into two basic categories

1. Helping improve software in the Free Software Community
2. Helping with existing efforts to raise awareness of Free Software generally
3. Helping raise awareness of Freedomware in my local community

Although the first is something I’d like to do, perhaps starting off by alpha/beta testing Ubuntu Hardy (watch this space), I believe that for me, at this time, raising awareness is more important. This is because its not specifically Linux/Ubuntu I want to improve - Linux is not that important - instead, I want people to realise that software liberty is important (and possibly choose Linux because of that).

The second should be fairly easy to do, I just need to hang around the GGL specific Nuxified forum a bit more. In fact, one of the GNU/Linux Matters ideas particularly interests me - UndeclaredRight.Info - but it doesn’t seem to have got anywhere yet. Perhaps I could be the person to get it started.

Libervis also seems like something I want to become more part of, but its more a group for discussing these issue rather than advocating them. And, I’m already a regular participant in #libervis anyway.

However, the thing is, I’m not really sure how to go about doing the third.”Local community” probably translates to my school. Thing is though, from talking to people about Software Liberty so far, I have had a rather negative response. At best, people are interested, in agreement with some of the things, but not bothered enough to take it further themselves; at worst, I give people a bad impression of Freedomware - my “advocacy” has a negative effect if any at all.

I’m not sure how I can overcome this. Perhaps over time I’ll get better at explaining it and making it relevant? Or perhaps I need a new approach. We have a “lesson” called enrichment, where speakers come in to do talks, and our teacher has suggested that students could talk about something important to them. An ideal opportunity? Maybe, if I managed to pull it off. If I don’t, I’ll just give freedomware a bad name in the minds of a lot of young people :S

Perhaps I should start a Freedomware group? I know there’s at least one person that would join. But similar to the enrichment idea we could get a lot ridicule and our efforts might fail miserably.

In addition I’d like to get more Freedomware into schools in the UK generally, but I have no idea at all where I can start working towards that.

:S :S :S