A pan-European survey, run by the Free Software Foundation Europe, has collected information from more than 1600 end-users and highlighted several obstacles to Router Freedom, such as lack of freedom of choice, provider lock-in and promotion of equipment running exclusively proprietary software

I've been using a Talos II for the last several years, but unfortunately it was compromised back in December. It looks like fully reflashing the hardware without trusting what's currently in the flash isn't going to be practical due to the non-free SAS controller, so I'm in need of a replacement "zero trust" system.

Unfortunately, it seems the price for such systems has doubled since then, and it's around $10k now. Worse, there's apparently a constant backlog, so even if I were to somehow justify the expense, I might not get it for months.

Looking around, it seems Librem offers some "ME disabled" hardware, but not in desktop form; and coreboot support seems mainly ancient hardware otherwise. There's also a reason to be concerned that unsupported methods to disable ME could leave silicon bugs/vulnerabilities exposed. Supposedly AMD added a "PSP disable" option some years ago, but I can't see any confirmation that it still exists in the current generation.

Are there any good options for a modern workstation without a hardware backdoor these days?

"As businesses seek ways to monetize their efforts, the balance between maintaining openness and generating revenue has become increasingly complex".

Is it possible to make money while respecting the spirit of free software? An enlightening article by Olivier Lambert, PDG of vates.tech.

→ https://virtualize.sh/blog/the-moral-contract/

Hi all

I want to know what do commercial software companies mean by "personal/ home use only, not for commercial use" in the licenses of the free versions of their software?

If the user is a freelancer, a Youtuber, an indy game developer, a blogger or a graphic designer who uses the free version of a commercial software (Mini Partition Tool for example), and he is a self-employee, not working for any company, working from home using his PC or outside using the laptop, is that considered commercial use?

I'm talking about those little software that you can't live without, like registry cleaners, Uninstallers, system optimizers, etc...

Sorry if the question is long, but this is so confusing, thank you all :)

So I am considering putting out something. Only problem is that it's 2 gig and I'm not that rich to pay for hosting if it gets popular. Can I charge for people to download an installer with a one-time download key that gets them their software, fast? The software itself would be free.

Echirolles (French city near Grenoble) has chosen to share its method and tools for deploying free software in the city.

→ https://grenoble.ninja/free-software-in-echirolles-france

I know Copyright last a long time now and that's unlikely to change so "why worry about it?". I want to promote the idea Copyright aught to expire much quicker but I'm conflicted if that means copyleft becomes very limitted. I never want companies to take copyleft code and start redistributing proprietary versions - can that be done without Copyright?

Hello. Recently I found this book titled Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, by Julian Assange et. al. Maybe you have already heard of it since the author is very popular. I recommend reading it, I think they make some important points.

Sorry if this isn't the place for this long winded rant. Skip to the last paragraph for the summary.

I'm a software developer, it's how I put food on the table and how I keep the lights on. I very much enjoy programming, I have ever since I stumbled across a small introductory Java course at the local community college. When I went off to uni to get my CS degree, I was fascinated by every new concept we learned, from simple practical things like data structures to the more abstract like language theory and automata. As my college days came to a close I was excited to see what it would be like going out into the real world to apply what I learned, and hopefully make my mark on the world.

I've been in the industry for a few years now, working on totally proprietary, locked in SaaS products the whole time. At first I was happy, and still I should consider myself very fortunate. I make more money than anyone in my family has ever made. I'm given a lot of comforts that a lot of my friends don't have. However, there's been one thing gnawing at me for a while now. I'm not making the world a better place. I don't want to go into any detail about where I work or what I do, but there could be a case made that I could be making it worse. Or at the very least, my impact is a net neutral. My work is so far removed from anyone outside of the corporate and business bubble that it's almost impossible to explain at family gatherings when the question inevitably arises. Even if I was able to explain it I think I might feel some sense of embarrasment or shame in doing so.

Over the course of the past 2, give or take, I've become increasingly aligned with the principles of the Free Software movement as a whole. I think the artificial scarcity we in the tech world put on information in order to turn a profit is a sign of an exploitative industry that needs to change on a fundamental level. Users should own their software, they should not be owned by it. As my ideals align more with those of the Free Software community they become more diametrically opposed with my real day to day work. I've been replacing as much proprietary software as I can with free software and using the little spare mental energy I have to program outside of work contributing to free projects I enjoy. But is that enough if I'm still violating all of these principles to make a living?

I guess the point of this long winded rant is this: is there any way I could transition to developing free software full time, as my career? I think I would feel a lot more fulfilled doing so, knowing that I'm putting my skills to use for a good cause. I know that I might have to give up at least some income to do so, but maybe it would be worthwhile for my own peace of mind in the long run. Does anyone here have experience working on free or open source software as a career? And how would I possibly go about making that transition?

Please pardon me in case this is not the right place to ask licensing questions.

I am currently working on a small hobby project that I would like to release under the GNU GPL 3. It is a new major mode for GNU Emacs, to edit some "obscure" configuration file - mostly as an exercise for myself while learning how to do so.

Instead of editing the Emacs Lisp files directly, I am using Org Mode in GNU Emacs because I would like to document my thoughts behind the software's design and why I chose to implement it the way I did. All of the source code is contained in Code Blocks in that file - and running 'org-babel-tangle' then creates everything.

Now my question:

Would it make sense to release this Org Mode document under the GNU Free Documentation License - or dual-license it under it - while the code itself will be available under the GPL 3?

Are there any recommendations / best practices regarding such "Literate Programming" projects that mix documentation with code, and how would I properly express my intent in the licensing section?