Notices by Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)
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Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:49:58 UTC 
Alexandre Oliva
no, it proves the opposite point. while third-party servers go away and bring down user data and connections with them, P2P systems that combine client and server functionality keep users in control, and enables them to keep on using the system regardless of third parties' willingness to run any servers. your unfounded allegation that servers are superior and P2P is inferior in terms of data permanence and reliability is disproved in every angle, and it's not like every node has a full copy of anything like blockchain. your statement is no more than an underinformed and improper generalization, that jumps from "there have been poorly-implemented and poorly-designed protocols" to "P2P cannot be done properly". if we were to apply that generalization to servers, whether centralized or semi-centralized (AKA federated), we see far worse reliability and data retention, but you claim they fare better, against all evidence. -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:06:56 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
counterpoint: twister's original author moved on years ago, nobody took over, and its P2P network remain up and running perfectly, and thanks to a few die hard users, our friends' posts remain available and we can still message each other. meanwhile, identi.ca switched protocols (and dropped past history), my diaspora and gnu social nodes from back then were discontinued, and one can't take one's mastodon history when moving servers -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 00:24:49 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
pessoal inventa cada coisa pra conseguir computador novo...
não faz muito tempo alguém falou que o computador tava mal assombrado, abrindo sites e aparecendo com coisas digitadas quando devia estar quietinho, adormecido, num escritório trancado
cc: @DanielaAbade :-) -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 00:11:33 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
trisquel vai lhe parecer um tanto familiar, o desafio mais provável vai ser buscar componentes de hardware compatíveis com sua liberdade, tipo wifi em usb, placa de vídeo, ... é um experimento bacana pra ver quanto software hostil nos é empurrado se passando por livre -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 20:05:24 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
que interessante! eu já tinha lido sobre pessoas que não conseguem visualizar mentalmente coisa alguma (se bem me lembro, era sobre alguém que trabalhava com filmes de animação!), mas não sabia dessa variação de grau de detalhe. que fascinante!
adicionou uma dimensão nova ao livro "o apanhador de sonhos" (dreamcatcher), do stephen king, em que, numa daquelas viagens que ele cria e eu adoro, pessoas adquirem um poder de projetar imagens mentais na mente das outras. aí agora eu fico pensando se, nesse cenário hipotético, a riqueza de detalhes com que a pessoa envia a imagem mental pra outra também varia de pessoa pra pessoa, e se chega pra outra pessoa com o nível de detalhe de quem mandou ou se limita pela acuidade de visão mental de quem recebe. ó as viagens...
aí eu lembro que golfinhos parecem ter capacidade de transmitir e receber imagens 3D através de seus sonares naturais, e fico pensando se conseguem receber e transmitir imagens em cores, em altíssima definição, se a emissão e a percepção de detalhes varia de um indivíduo pra outro e tals... -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 19:56:45 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
força, companheiro
me chamou atenção você usar o verbo "ser" em vez de "estar" pra qualificar o trabalho como atrasado. é de praxe isso? acho que vou adotar também ;-) mas vou sentir falta dessa distinção ao escrever em inglês :-) -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 19:50:32 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
trying to second-guess users as to their expectations is part of a compiler's job, and that's what warnings are often for. but the primary mission of a compiler is to translate the source code to object code; an optimizing compiler adds to that making the object code run fast or be compact or somesuch, still according to the meaning of the program according to the language specification. second-guessing the user with -fdo-what-I-mean :-) enabled by default is usually a recipe for trouble, because those who understand the language and take advantage of its features to get better code end up unhappy, and most users who don't know the darkest corners of the language in such amount of detail still end up unhappily surprised because incorrect expectations are just too varied. it's tough, but and it's easy to argue for "just this one case" while missing the point of all the other "just this one case" that would be just as deserving -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 19:39:03 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
it could be a lot worse, really
imagine if the invading empire was so powerful that it could get other countries to imprison and torture that who dared try to inform the rest of the world about such true horror, so that it could keep on inflicting such true horror onto others with impunity? imagine if other vassal countries allowed themselves to play such dirty roles?
#freeassange -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 19:31:05 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
que medonho! antes de botar o computador pra dormir, quanto disso já tava aberto? firefox? aba do tradutor? eu me preocupo que seu computador esteja sob controle remoto, que alguém esteja tentando lhe mandar um recado, seja pra ajudar ou pra ameaçar. faz tempo que você usa esse computador? ele esteve em mãos estranhas? você nota algum outro comportamento atípico? -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 18:25:20 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
bringing proprietary software to run onto a proprietary kernel will attract more abusers to bring more proprietary software onto a proprietary kernel? where's the good part of it? I mean, where's even the FLOSS part of it? none of that is FLOSS, and attracting suckers to it won't do them good, not to them, not to us, because if they fall for "oh, proprietary on proprietary is good because it's been FOLSS (sic)-washed", they will not even help us take the next step towards FLOSS proper. we need to stand for true FLOSS, and FOLSS is the negation of that, to fool those who aren't paying enough attention. -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 18:15:43 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
I suspect, not without much disappointment, that the humor in your post would fly way over the head of a number of readers, who would identify with and proudly support the self-defeating values and stances you clearly (to me) meant to criticize and parody :-( -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 18:09:39 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
ISTM that you are talking past each other. may I suggest that there's no such thing as "wrong source code"? if there's source code for one program or version, and there's object for code for another program or version, neither is wrong, they're merely not corresponding to each other.
there is a freedom issue there for the object code inasmuch as the non-corresponding source is offered as a trick to avoid offering the corresponding source, but if it's a mistake that is corrected promptly enough, there's no freedom issue, and the programs or versions offered initially are no less free because of the mistake.
now, what I believe leads to your differences of PoV is a difference of perception of what the program is. one conceptual framework I see considers the source code as the ultimate source of truth, and would consider deviations from it introduced by tools, people, whatever, whether accidentally or maliciously, as undesirable noise that is easy enough to filter out. the other framework perceives the binary program as the primary reference point, and seeks to make it reproducible (like a scientific experiment) and enable every little artifact in it to have its provenance identifiable, traceable back to free sources and thus understandable. I see value in both frameworks, and perceive them as complementary rather than contentious. -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 17:55:38 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
hmm, we may have miscommunicated. knowing that two compilers (or two toolsets) are *independent* is no simple feat indeed, for all the reasons you named, and then some. e.g., many many years ago, gcc used to borrow (by bringing into libgcc) implementations of long integer and float operations from whatever compiler you used to build it. this was a clever trick for native builds (not so much for crosses), but it have the side effect of building blobs of unclear provenance into libgcc, and thus potentially into binaries built by the compiler, and that's very down-to-earth, mean-no-ill behavior (as opposed to malicious esoteric attacks), but it is undesirable for various reasons.
now, since we're talking software freedom philosophy rather than security issues, please allow me to bring some further thoughts onto the table. if you're writing, compiling, debugging and fixing a program so that it does your computing as you wish, and not once do you notice these hidden blobs, or hit a situation in which they'd be activated so as to deviate the program's behavior from what's expected from its sources, are you not getting your computing done as you wish regardless of the hidden blobs? are you not indeed in control of that computing? there are some security risks and landmines hiding in there, I'm not denying that, just trying to un-conflate freedom and security.
so the hidden blobs pose an obstacle to learning details of the binary, but to studying the source code? -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 09:04:02 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
in case you haven't seen my response to blake in this thread, you may want to look for it and read it before what follows
if your compiler inserts hidden blobs that are not present in its source code, then you're not using a free compiler, right? whereas if you start from fully-free tools, whatever you build with them from free sources should also be free.
verifying only comes into play if you wish to take shortcuts by using binaries supplied by third parties that can't be assumed/trusted to be free. and if they can't, and verification involves *not* taking the shortcut, it's not much of a shortcut, is it? :-/ -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 08:52:10 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
the compiler is entitled and correct to optimize that out. the target language prohibits integer overflow, therefore the compiler may assume it doesn't happen, and given this assumption, the result of the compare is known.
what is funny to me is for people to think they're allowed to exceed the speed of light to test whether they're breaking some law of physics. you can't exceed the speed of light, and traffic guards who know their physics know they don't have to check, they can safely relax, as the actual laws of physics cannot be broken ;-) -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 08:24:17 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
though you probably already know the answer, I'll risk responding: (0) running the program for any purpose, and (2) making verbatim copies of the program and distributing them when you wish. no relationship with bootstrapping or reproducible builds, or even with building, but essential for one to not be placed under duress by unjust and impractical constraints, nor to be required to be a bad community member -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 08:18:40 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
that, too, comes across as an exaggeration to me. although there is potential for compilers to implement "reflections on trusting trust", those are the exception rather than the rule. in nearly every case, using any compiler to get things started is enough to get you binaries that correspond to the sources and nothing else. it is nice to be able to verify that there aren't invisible blobs, but such verification is not essential for software freedom, only to show that a certain binary contains a hidden blob (I hope the distinction is clear and meaningful, and not taken as demeaning either one). the verification is made easier and mechanical by having both a free bootstrap path and reproducible builds, but really, starting from two known-independent compiler binaries, using one of them at a time to bootstrap the free compiler that is then used to build the desired program may very well be enough to verify the absence of hidden blobs, provided that the initial compilers are indeed independent, and that the hopefully-free bootstrapped compiler does not borrow library code from them. reproducible builds, of the compiler and of the program compiled by it, would likely help notice in case they do. -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 07:24:30 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
Idiocracia chegou mais cedo
(eu morria de rir da tela enorme, cheia de anúncios, com um retângulo pequenininho perdido no meio dos anúncios passando o que a pessoa queria assistir) -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 07:20:38 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
it reminded me of the end of Terminator II -
Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2023 07:12:44 UTC
Alexandre Oliva
.oO on this day, 38 years ago, Richard Stallman filed for incorporation of the Free Software Foundation, to support the GNU Project and the Free Software Movement, started a little over two years before. happy FSF anniversary to all users and developers!
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