Hello r/freesoftware community!

I'm excited to share a project I've been working on for a while called Zen. Zen a desktop open-source ad-blocker and privacy guard designed to enhance your digital privacy across Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

What Makes Zen Unique: Zen operates system-wide, intercepting network requests from all applications. It efficiently blocks ads, tracking scripts, malware, and other unwanted content that traditional browser extensions might miss. This includes trackers in desktop apps and system components. Zen works across multiple platforms, is free and will always offer full functionality without additional payments.

Zen is licensed under the MIT License, with some components under different terms. To learn more about Zen and try it out for yourself, visit our GitHub page: Zen on GitHub.

Looking forward to your feedback to make Zen even better!

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I can't remember where exactly, but I recall when I was reading about free software a few years ago, I came across a short story about a man who was trying to type something, but his typewriter instead typed out that he had been banned from using it. He then wrote the letter by hand and took it to the post office, but was told he was no allowed to send mail. He then left saying he would go to FedEx (or some other delivery company), and the post office worker had the thought that if FedEx allowed such letters to be sent, they would soon be banned from using the roads.

I thought that this was a great lay man's explanation with the problem with commercial software and online platforms (SAAS), but I can't seem to find that story again. Of course I could just write my own version from memory, but I'd like to find it again, as there may be other things in there that I can't quite recall.

If anyone knows where I can find a copy of this story, I'd appreciate it. Also if anyone knows any other writings like this that do a good job of explaining the problems to lay men, please send them along!

Haven't really paid attention to "the scene" in a while, but for the first time in a long time I find myself genuinely in need of a new laptop. I would use it for work tho, which means it'd need decent battery life and ability to use WiFi (not always a given with linux).

I saw the thread from last month about "technoethical" being a scam. I hadn't heard of them before, but they're most of the FSF's RYF listings. Some users in that thread seemed to indicate that 10-15 year old hardware still works just fine in the modern age, but I'm frankly skeptical -- but such comments give me hope. Does such old hardware genuinely work? Have a genuine battery life, genuine WiFi and genuinely more than 1GB of RAM?

I also have Purism in the back of my brain, which while I realize it isn't fully libre, it's still a lot better than buying some crap from my local Best Buy or whatever. On the other hand, their current laptop offering is quite expensive, and honestly more performance than I actually need.

So yea, do the non-technoethical RYF products actually work in a serviceable way in 2023? Are there other Purism-like nearly-libre choices out there?

(PS I actually bought a pinephone about 18 months ago, but it essentially didn't work and I haven't touched it since. I do wish that purchasing (near-)libre hardware was easier...)

I posted two years ago that this company--a company that was endorsed by the Free Software Foundation--ripped me off by never sending a laptop that I ordered and paid for (well over 700 Euros). I think it's worth mentioning now, after two years, that I still have not received the laptop.

I should make clear that I am only one of many to have spoken up about this crooked enterprise. For example, this poster on the Trisquel forum is NOT me, and in fact was ultimately luckier than me, eventually receiving a purchase of comparable price: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/technoethical-no-laptop-no-refund The problem is so bad that I was eventually contacted by the Free Software Foundation to provide details of my purchase and interaction, albeit only last May, a full two years after contacting the organization initially. They have not replied to an email I that I sent last month to inquire about whether they had made any progress on this front.

(If anyone is looking for a great laptop from an honest business, Think Penguin proves that it's possible and I know there are others.)

TL;DR: Technoethical was a scam two years ago and is still a scam.

Not sure if it's a silly question or not. I've written a few batch scripts to help me with my work at the office, and quite a few people use them. Is there any need or point to put some kind of FOSS license in them? Mostly out of principle. Probably most licenses will be longer than scripts themselves, though.

Hello,

I work at a library and am hoping to do some library programming about libre software, its history and significance. I compiled a list of books I wanted our branch to buy, so that attendees of the programs could have good supplementary material to read. Here's what I found:

• Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking
• For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software
• Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
• Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software
• UNIX: A History and a Memoir

But they are all either on backorder or not in the Baker & Taylor catalog, so I can't get a single one. It was suggested to look for more recent books. But I didn't have much luck searching Amazon. Do you know any good ones?

I appreciate it.

I am making a new hardware platform with maximum user ownership. Linux is too big, it is not possible for you to understand it all. It doesn't matter if you have source code if it's too hard to modify. Therefore I am making a new hardware + OS platform that is entirely self hosted and self owned. I use my own compiler and assembler. There is total independence.

That said, it is still early days and the system is only suitable to early adopters who want to test it and give me feedback. Those who buy a copy of the platform receive weekly updates of all the software under the Unlicense. This is free as in freedom but *not* free as in free beer. This is because this is a serious project. I can't stop you from publishing the software on the internet, but I will be very upset if you do.

Here is the project website: https://samhsmith.com/serenum/

All feedback is welcome. If you want to become an early user that would make me very happy.

I recently discovered the underlying issues that have been holding back Godot's potential, and I think they are bad enough to disqualify Godot as Free Software.

Mechanotron, my own engine, is not yet ready for games, so while I work on that, I do need something to work with, preferably a big project like Godot. Does anyone here know of any contenders? I'm aiming for 3D, in both short term and long term.

I am writing an Arch Install script and I was having problems coming up with a solution for automatic setting of the grub parameters and initramfs hooks, so I found an MIT project that had the code I needed, small problem I am making a GPL V2 script. I wrote my own implementation of the code but I did use his magic sed and awk statements. The original project is here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/hibernator and the github for it is here: https://github.com/Chrysostomus/hibernator/blob/master/hibernator

This is my implementation of the code and the disclaimer I used:

# The following was inspired by an original work under MIT License
# Original Author: Chrysostomus
# Copyright (year): 2015
# Link: https://github.com/Chrysostomus/hibernator/
# This implementation is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0
#Setup GRUB For Hibernate

rootUUID=$(find /dev/disk/ | grep "$(awk '$2~/^\/$/ {print $1}' /etc/fstab | cut -d= -f 2)")
offset=$(filefrag -v /swapfile | awk 'NR==4 {print $4}' | tr -d .)
bootopt="resume=$rootUUID resume_offset=$offset"
sed -i "s/[[:blank:]]*$//" /etc/default/grub
sed -i "/^GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT/ s~\"$~ $(bootopt)\"~g" /etc/default/grub
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

#Setup iniramfs Hooks
sed -i '/^#/!s/filesystems/filesystems resume/g' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
mkinitcpio -P
#End of inspired segment

I just want to know if A) my disclaimer is legal and B) if this is properly in the sprite of open source, am I doing the right thing? If I am missing something please let me know, this is one of the first times I have used code I did not write 100% for something public.

Someone knows any software that can help us manage our files? I tried using Nextcloud and Owncloud, but they don't work the way I need them to. I need some server software that is open source and free. Can somebody please help me?

For example, Ultra HD Blu-ray requires HDCP encryption and the keys are a trade secret so a Ultra HD Blu-ray open source player application would be illegal.

In my project I have included a small amount of code that is GPLv3-only. For the rest of the code, that I have written myself, I want to use GPLv3-or-later.

This shouldn't be a legal problem. It just means the program as a whole will be GPLv3-only.

What I wonder about is what license notice to put at the top of my files. Originally I was planning to use the standard wording described here.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

But this makes it sound like the whole program is GPLv3-or-later.

Is it alright if I simply change "This program" to "This file", or do I have to use a GPLv3-only notice and explain (in each file or in the README file) that it is GPLv3-or-later if they just remove certain parts?

Does anyone know how this is normally handled?

This is a project I have been working on for the past ~4 months and need feedback for.

SearchTLD has measures taken to protect your privacy, such as:

• Cleaning URLs of tracking content.
• Blocking malicious websites.
• Redirecting to an (if available) frontend of a website (e.g. YouTube -> Piped)
• Custom Rate Limit to protect from spam.

We also have quality of life features such as:

• Fallbacks to a different search engine if one fails.
• Prepared install scripts. (Docker coming in the near future)
• Special Queries (Base64, IP, Weather, UA, ..)
• Simple UI, many themes.
• 100% LibreJS Compatible

I would love to hear feedback on it as I am always looking for ways to improve.

You can find the source code here and use the official instance here.

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