The DebConf Content team would like to call for proposals for the DebConf21 conference, which will take place online from August 22nd to 29th, 2021. You can find this Call for Proposals, in its latest form, online:
LINKS
The next IRC meeting is Monday 19:00 hrs on #debconf-team (oftc irc network)
As Debian is a fully free Operating System. This means that if your hardware has any non free firmware, the drivers may not be available during the install. There are several ways round this.
Another option is to use hardware that does not contain proprietary firmware. Some links below may be helpful.
in our last press release on the EU Copyright Directive, Alexander Sander says:
“The exclusion of Free Software code hosting and sharing providers from this directive is crucial to keep Free Software development in Europe healthy, solid and alive”
How do we come to this conclusion? We can probably give thanks to Microsoft for their good lobby work, that they could get an exception for GitHub (maybe the purchase of GitHub had finally probably something good):
“Open source software developing and sharing platforms like GitHub should remain out of scope.” [1]
Finally, I don’t think this will help us. Other open source platforms, such as Mastodon instances, have to install upload filters if they don’t want to end up in court. I am not a lawyer and I can’t find a section in the directive that contains the opposite or can dispel my concerns about this. Can our legal team tell us what does
“Providers of services such as open source software development and sharing platforms,[…] are also excluded from this definition” [2]
in the “EU Copyright Directive” exactly mean for free and open source software projects that are not “software development and sharing platforms”?
Next, Alexander says in our names:
“We call on the European Commission to promote the dissemination of Free Software filter technologies, including financial support, for instance”
No, I won’t do that and I completely disagree! I urge the FSFE to argue *against* uploadfilters and censorship. Because it doesn’t matter if the censorship machine has an open or a closed license, At the end of the day uploadfilters serve censorship and censorship has to be abolished. There’s already enough free software being abused for purposes of oppression and to spy on privacy in the surveillance capitalism, we don’t need another one.
I hope that we will reconsider our goals we shared in this press release.
Christian Imhorst
[1] https://github.blog/2019-02-13-the-eu-copyright-directive-what-happens-from-here/
[2] https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Copyright_Final_compromise.pdf
——– Originalnachricht ——–
Betreff: [FSFE PR][EN] Copyright Directive – EU safeguards Free Software at the last minute
Datum: 26.03.2019 12:59
Von: press@fsfe.org
An: press-release@lists.fsfe.org
= Copyright Directive – EU safeguards Free Software at the last minute =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190326-01.en.html ]
The European Parliament adopted the controversial Copyright Directive by
348 votes in favour, 274 votes against and 36 abstentions. Today’s vote
marks the end of years of debate in the European Union. Heated
discussions about the introduction of upload filters ended up in
protests of tens of thousands people in the streets all across Europe.
In a last minute action back in September 2018, the European Parliament
adopted an amendment and pushed it through the trilogue to at least
protect Free and Open Source Software.
“We are glad we were able to raise awareness and understanding of
what drives software development in Europe nowadays among many
policy makers. The exclusion of Free Software code hosting and
sharing providers from this directive is crucial to keep Free
Software development in Europe healthy, solid and alive. we are
dismayed that the EU missed the opportunity to renew copyright to a
reasonable extent. As upload filters are now introduced, we urge the
European Commission to avoid filtering monopolies by companies this
directive actually intended to regulate. We call on the European
Commission to promote the dissemination of Free Software filter
technologies, including financial support, for instance within the
framework of research programmes Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe.”
says Alexander Sander, Policy Manager of the Free Software
Foundation Europe.
The Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Forum Europe started a
campaign to “ Save Code Share [1] ” in 2017. More than 14.000 people
supported our call with an open letter which requests EU legislators to
preserve the ability to collaboratively build software online in current
EU Copyright Directive proposal.
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our
lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than
restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use,
understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other
fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.
The FSFE helps individuals and organisations to understand how Free
Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination.
It enhances users’ rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software
adoption, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and
provide resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software
in Europe.
http://fsfe.org
_______________________________________________
Press-release mailing list
Press-release@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE’s Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE’s Code of Conduct. All
participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other:
https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
Google Summer of Code March 2019 update
Update on this round of Debian / Google summer of code applications.
On Thu 28 March 2019 with tags announce gsoc outreachy
Written by Laura Arjona Reina and Lesley Mitchell
Debian is dedicated to increasing the diversity of contributors to the project and improving the inclusivity of the project. We strongly believe working towards these goals provides benefits both for people from backgrounds that are currently under-represented in free software, and for the wider movement, by increasing the range of skills, experiences and viewpoints contributing to it.
https://bits.debian.org/2019/03/call-for-applicants-outreachy-gsoc-2019.html
“Released more than three years ago, on April 25, 2015, Debian GNU/Linux 8 “Jessie” is currently considered the “oldstable” Debian branch since the release of the Debian GNU/Linux 9 “Stretch” operating system series precisely a year ago, on June 17, 2017. As such, Debian GNU/Linux 8 “Jessie” has now reached end of life and will no longer receive regular security support beginning June 17, 2018.”
Read more (Links to Tux Machines)
Carry on the conversation on our Friendi.ca account. See link in sidebar.
News from the Free Software foundation is that ActivityPub is now a web standard thanks to the W3C. If you are not sure what this is please check out the link below:-
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#Overview
It seems Lenovo the PC / Laptop makers have been installing spyware on their PC’s without the users knowledge or consent
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31533028
I think this is a good reason to either re-install your OS when you get a new computer. Normally you get install / restore media or the option to make this, however in this case if the spyware is pre-installed it could be on these restore cds. so you will be no better off, you can possibly get a removal tool, but these removal tools usually end up putting other malware on to your computer, removing it is a PITA.
A BETTER OPTION
Install a free and open source OS such as Mint, Ubuntu or a pure free software and take back control of your computer.
Join a GNU / Linux user group so you can learn more.
This is also a good reason why you need to know more about what your computer is doing..
This months Pi jam was a real gem, lots of things being demoed and some excellent progress being made with various projects.
Tom, brought along his Marco 2 robot, which if you are following this blog or are a regular attendee of jams. This has now been updated to allow control via a web interface.
More information on this is on the Feb 2015 Exeter Jam write up blog post. So I will let people go there for more info.
Tom also brought along Freddie and after some basic set up this worked fine, following a green ball with his eyes.
Video taken back in July
Doodle bot also made an appearence this is really good as it works without any user interaction and can draw (or try) to draw what it has been programmed to.
We also helped a lady get up and running with her new pi,
Here is the pi being installed from the NOOBS install tool
And a picture of the pi running the Raspbian OS after install.
I also demonstrated my Minecraft Pi coding with python. I will post a video to youtube and put this on my website blog.
We also helped out a user who had an older install of GNU / Linux on his PC (Debian) and wanted a newer GNU / Linux installed so flash player would function properly.
We were unble to help fully however he will be back at the next jam iwth his PC backed up so we can install Linuxmint 17.1
One of our younger members also worked on getting a cluster of computers up and running and thanks to a router / switch donated by Rick at Wifispark he got 2 laptops and my Pi up and running and proved that by sharing the load calculations can be performed quicker. There is a dedicated page for this on the website. Where results will be posted shortly.
We also had a Dan from the TDA drop in to see what was going on with the view on how they can help further and perhaps involve some of the local hi tech companies.
So a BIG thank you for everyone involved today and everyone who came along to support the event. Hopefully next month will be more of the same and perhaps even bigger and better.
We also had Sarah from Inspiring Dreams, Achieving Change, who offered to help promote what we are doing.
The word on the Pi jams IS spreading. which is a good thing.
See everyone on the 14th March 2015 at Paignton Library. 13:00 to 15:00
Another pi jam today and it went very well highlights as follows
We helped on visitor get up and running and ended up re-creating an sd card with raspbian (1)on in order to get the Pi up and running. In the end Tom got everything up and running, with some help from myself as I seem to have an array of adapters and other bits and pieces which always seem to come in handy. Including various images on my netbook.
Our younger visitors were busy with various projects Arduino (6) hacking and getting Arch (2) Linux up and running in a virtual machine, (Virtual box) (3))
I have loaned out my pi-liter (4) to one of the younger visitors so he can demonstrate at school
1.) http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
2.) https://www.archlinux.org/
3.) https://www.virtualbox.org/
5.) http://shop.ciseco.co.uk/pi-liter-8-led-strip-for-the-raspberry-pi/
Support repositories for the pi liter
https://github.com/zleap/RaspberryPI
and
https://github.com/zleap/compgroup
Which has some ladder board source code, but should demonstrate the use of the GPIO.
You can also download the pi liter data sheet from the website http://shop.ciseco.co.uk/pi-liter-8-led-strip-for-the-raspberry-pi/
However you DO need to install python-pip with
sudo apt-get install python-pip
For some reason the data sheet instructions missed out this step.
The next Pi jam is on 10th January so if you get a Pi for Xmas come along and we can help you get started or show you what you can do with it. We don’t BYTE 🙂 and are happy to help.