Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #FreeSoftware
Most recents (9)
This week on my #podcast, I read #Twiddler, a recent @Medium column in which I delve more deeply into #enshittification, and how it is a pathology of digital platforms, distinct from the rent-seeking of the analog world that preceded it:
doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9… 1/
doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9… 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/kno… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/kno… 2/
Enshittification, you'll recall, is the lifecycle of the online platform: first, the platform allocates #surpluses to end-users; then, once users are locked in, those surpluses are taken away and given to business-customers. 3/
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).
Inside: Canada's privatised shadow civil service; and more!
Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mck…
#Pluralistic 1/
Inside: Canada's privatised shadow civil service; and more!
Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mck…
#Pluralistic 1/
From Feb 8-17, I'll be in Australia, touring my book *Chokepoint Capitalism* with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We'll be in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, and I hope to see you!
pluralistic.net/2023/01/30/i-c… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/01/30/i-c… 2/
Canada's privatised shadow civil service: Tories claim governments are incompetent, Liberals prove it.
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When a superdense, concentrated mass forms a black hole, the laws of physics around it change, giving rise to an eldritch zone where the normal rules don't apply. When corporations form a concentrated industry, the laws of economics likewise change. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/12/05/eld… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/12/05/eld… 2/
Take copyright: when I was a baby writer, there were dozens of comparably sized New York publishers. The writers who mentored me could shop their rights around to lots of houses, which enabled them to subdivide those rights. 3/
Two visions competed at the dawn of the modern digital era: computers could be a way to empower people to push back against corporate and state control; or computers could transfer power from the public to corporations or governments. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/12/03/pai… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/12/03/pai… 2/
I've always been baffled by the technologists who pursued control over liberation: surely their own formative experiences were of the liberatory power of technology. 3/
If you've never had a fight over the phrase #IntellectualProperty, count yourself lucky, you normie, you. In the land of #FreeSoftware and #FreeCulture, "IP" is fightin' words.
Not unreasonably, mind you. 1/
Not unreasonably, mind you. 1/
"IP" was a deliberately ploy, undertaken by the world's largest, most aggressive corporations, who hated the existing terms of art, like "creators' monopolies." 2/
You can see why: it's hard to ask a legislature to strengthen your monopoly without provoking giggles, but "Help me defend my property"? That's an appeal to the American state religion. 3/
Here's the conundrum with @Nvidia drivers on Linux, in a thread. I have a Fedora perspective, obviously, but I think it's a shared problem. (🧵 rant which I'm not going to bother to count or number.) #linux #nvidia #opensource #freesoftware
On the one hand, users just want their hardware to work — I've got a laptop, it's got an Nvidia card, make it go!
And I don't have anything against proprietary software. I mean, I find it boring, but, sure, keep your "secrets".
A research paper was published looking into the privacy of the Google & Apple #covid19 exposure notification framework and Contact Tracing Apps scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pub… #GAEN
'We find that the apps are generally well behaved. In contrast, the Google Play Services component of these apps is extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint.'
'Google Play services share the phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number, handset phone number, the WiFi MAC address and user email address with Google, together with fine-grained data on the apps running on the phone.'
HTTP/3 is being deployed in production for all of us, and that could be important for you and me and the Internet.
(Short) thread ahead
(Short) thread ahead
HTTP is this protocol that makes the web work en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext… It was first described (and implemented) in 1989 (you know: @timberners_lee and his team and the @CERN and all that), but it was first formally specified as HTTP/0.9 in 1991.
@timberners_lee @CERN HTTP/0.9 was a simple protocol built on top of TCP, using plain text headers, with no encryption, very limited in functionality, but doing its task well enough for those ages. Its description is like one page long: w3.org/Protocols/HTTP…
More than 7 years ago, I started the #FreeYourAndroid campaign for @fsfe: FreeYourAndroid.org
Today, it is easier than ever to run a system with only free (libre) apps...
Today, it is easier than ever to run a system with only free (libre) apps...
However, 7 years later, there are still some gaps. One of these is backup. Google users get a convenient one click cloud backup while users of a free system need insecure root or debug bridge hacks.
That is why I have been working on a #FreeSoftware backup app that does not need root and saves backups wherever you want (e.g. flash drive, @Nextclouders).
