Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ring, officially a GNU package

blog.savoirfairelinux.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#41

Post by geofft »

pvg wrote: post #35
geofft wrote: post #13

What's the advantage of being a GNU project these days? It seems like it ties you very strongly to the FSF's political opinions and in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) and restricts your technical decision-making options (e.g., limited plugin architecture, limited support for non-free OSes, mandatory support for things like GNUTLS), while not giving you very much in return - with the…

What are Stallman's supposed opinions on eugenics?

https://stallman.org/notes/current.html#31_October_2016_(Dow...

"A new noninvasive test for Down's syndrome will eliminate the small risk of the current test.

"This might lead more women to get tested, and abort fetuses that have Down's syndrome. Let's hope so! It is very wrong to intentionally subject a person to life with a serious disability, given the option to abort and try again."

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#42

Post by geofft »

snvzz wrote: post #23
geofft wrote: post #13

What's the advantage of being a GNU project these days? It seems like it ties you very strongly to the FSF's political opinions and in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) and restricts your technical decision-making options (e.g., limited plugin architecture, limited support for non-free OSes, mandatory support for things like GNUTLS), while not giving you very much in return - with the…

> What's the advantage of being a GNU project these days? I can't think of anything. > and in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) Utter nonsense. Being part of GNU doesn't imply agreeing with every word Stallman utters on any topic. > restricts your technical decision-making options Very real (see gcc and frontend/backend separation) and a very good reason to stay away.

> Utter nonsense. Being part of GNU doesn't imply agreeing with every word Stallman utters on any topic.

Of course it doesn't. But associating yourself with GNU is, very straightforwardly, associating yourself with Stallman. What is the advantage of doing so?

If there is such an advantage, then yeah, I think it's totally fair to dissociate yourself from his political views. But it seems to me like joining GNU is solely a political statement and a sign of agreement with Stallman's views on morality (since he frames free software / computing freedom as a moral issue). I don't know why anyone would want to make that statement unless they actually want to be associated with his political and moral views. That's all I'm asking. Is there another reason to associate yourself with GNU?

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#43

Post by geofft »

davexunit wrote: post #16
geofft wrote: post #13

What's the advantage of being a GNU project these days? It seems like it ties you very strongly to the FSF's political opinions and in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) and restricts your technical decision-making options (e.g., limited plugin architecture, limited support for non-free OSes, mandatory support for things like GNUTLS), while not giving you very much in return - with the…

>seems like it ties you very strongly to the FSF's political opinions Some are happy to be associated with the opinion that all software should be free. >in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) Richard Stallman's opinions, outside of the realm of free software, are irrelevant in the context of the GNU project. Throwing out eugenics like that feels manipulative to me. >restricts your techn…

> Richard Stallman's opinions, outside of the realm of free software, are irrelevant in the context of the GNU project.

But his entire point is that free software is a moral imperative, and that it is morally better to have no software at all than non-free software. How can you separate morality into parts?

And, if you do, where do you divide it? Are politics that affect what copyright laws may exist relevant? Are meta-politics like voting rights or styles of government or campaign finance relevant, if they affect how copyright laws get decided?

> the focus of the GNU project is to develop a fully free operating system, and maintainers should focus their efforts accordingly

Right. It seems to me that becoming a GNU project means that you are required to focus your efforts in certain ways. You are completely free to focus your efforts in those ways without being part of the GNU project, though. It simply restricts your options.

If you trust the GNU project to be better at you at finding the morally right thing to do, then it makes sense to ask GNU to restrict what you can do. As a churchgoer I totally understand why you might want to outsource your morality to a larger organization consisting of more people than you who think harder about things - but it matters a lot that you find the right organization, and that you can trust the people who run the organization to be making good moral choices in general. There are a number of churches where I do not, and I don't associate myself with them, no matter how much I agree with most of their views. Similarly, I find it hard to trust the future moral decision-making of someone who supports eugenics. If I support their current moral stances on free software (and, as it happens, I agree with the vast majority of what Stallman says about free software), I can always just adopt those stances as my own.

> I wouldn't call GitHub a competitor.

Sorry, that was unclear - I meant GitHub and GitHub's competitors (in case you philosophically disagree with GitHub). It gets you a lot of stuff self-service that years ago was much more easily had through affiliation with GNU, or Apache, or Red Hat, or someone else.

I concede that donations and marketing are things you get from GNU that you wouldn't get from GitHub etc. (Although I think many projects find that being on GitHub gives them visibility in a way that seems likely to make up for the lack of explicit marketing, depending on the project.)

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#44

Post by geofft »

belorn wrote: post #38
stonogo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know he said things, but I also know the gcc frontend/backend hard wall is very real, entirely political, and is very frustrating. What good is reading his post when you can see how core GNU projects are actually run?

Who is the maintainer of GCC? This is not news to me, but its the maintainer of a project that decide over their project. Its like how the CEO of Microsoft do not control what Apple do, nor vice verse. Two projects with different people in charge, makes different decision, and has different priorities. The good thing about reading other posts is that you might realize that not every project is run the same way. If yo…

> its the maintainer of a project that decide over their project

Except that's not true once you've made your project a GNU project, which is exactly my point.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnutls-devel/2012-12/msg0... (RMS telling the GnuTLS maintainer they can't move their project out of GNU)

https://lwn.net/Articles/629259/ (GCC maintainers want certain priorities, RMS overrules)

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-01/msg00... (Emacs maintainer threatening to fork Emacs if he cannot make the technical decisions he wants to make)

https://libreboot.org/gnu-insult/ (GNU maintainers telling a GNU maintainer they cannot take their project out of GNU, and it "is for the Saint IGNUcious to decide")

Stallman is the CEO, and maintainers are, at best, VPs. I have no axe to grind with the GCC maintainers over their priorities - I just wish they had the ability to follow their own priorities.

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#45

Post by snvzz »

geofft wrote: post #42
snvzz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the advantage of being a GNU project these days? I can't think of anything. > and in particular Richard Stallman's political opinions (e.g., eugenics) Utter nonsense. Being part of GNU doesn't imply agreeing with every word Stallman utters on any topic. > restricts your technical decision-making options Very real (see gcc and frontend/backend separation) and a very good reason to stay away.

> Utter nonsense. Being part of GNU doesn't imply agreeing with every word Stallman utters on any topic. Of course it doesn't. But associating yourself with GNU is, very straightforwardly, associating yourself with Stallman. What is the advantage of doing so? If there is such an advantage, then yeah, I think it's totally fair to dissociate yourself from his political views. But it seems to me like joining GNU is sole…

> But it seems to me like joining GNU is solely a political statement and a sign of agreement with Stallman's views on morality (since he frames free software / computing freedom as a moral issue).

GNU's views on software. Stallman's just the figurehead for these. I don't care what his opinions are outside of this, nevermind agree or disagree.

> Is there another reason to associate yourself with GNU?

As I said, I can't think of any in the first place. But I'm still glad GNU and FSF do exist, and that their views are so extreme.

If they weren't, then a much softer position would be called extreme instead. The world would be worse for it.

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#46

Post by davidbanham »

davidcollantes wrote: post #39

I could not find this anywhere; do Ring uses a server (NAT traversal, or similar)? Thanks!

According to the docs, it gives you the option deep in the settings to add your own STUN and TURN servers. It seems like it doesn't ship with any preconfigured. That makes it a non starter for me.

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#47

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

drdaeman wrote: post #21
nextos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true. A more comparable thing to Signal is Matrix [1] and it's client Riot [2]. Theoretically, it has perfect forward secrecy. It's not as distributed as Ring is, but there is no centralized server as in Signal either. Riot is also in F-Droid. So while not a GNU member, I find it sufficiently open and free. A totally distributed approach with forward secrecy is Tox [3]. It needs a good code audit, though.…

AFAIK, Matrix identity servers system isn't really decentralized yet. They're working on this, but it's not there yet. Just saying.

...No, not unless you're converting from an external ID. Matrix IDs are decentralized, last I checked.

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#48

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

irl_ wrote: post #10

The DHT system for identities is cool, but the thing that gets me is that they don't have support for SRTP with ZRTP, only SRTP with SDES. There's no perfect forward secrecy, and a bunch of other features that ZRTP has. https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/technolo...

Tox is another system using DHT for identity (among other things), and it does have perfect forward security. So you may want to try that.

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#49

Post by Arathorn »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #47
drdaeman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Matrix identity servers system isn't really decentralized yet. They're working on this, but it's not there yet. Just saying.

...No, not unless you're converting from an external ID. Matrix IDs are decentralized, last I checked.

the ID service in Matrix is optional, and should be called an 'ID mapping service', really. All it does is to map 3rd party IDs such as email addresses to decentralised matrix IDs. Currently it is a logically centralised service, and this is a major shortcoming: in future we intend to decentralise it as much as possible. This is Hard however, and we're kinda hoping that a decentralised equivalent to Keybase will come along and do the work for us :) Until then, you don't have to use the existing centralised thing if you don't like it :)

Re: Ring, officially a GNU package

#50

Post by RVuRnvbM2e »

geofft wrote: post #41
pvg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are Stallman's supposed opinions on eugenics?

https://stallman.org/notes/current.html#31_October_2016_(Dow... "A new noninvasive test for Down's syndrome will eliminate the small risk of the current test. "This might lead more women to get tested, and abort fetuses that have Down's syndrome. Let's hope so! It is very wrong to intentionally subject a person to life with a serious disability, given the option to abort and try again."

This is not "eugenics". Screening for serious birth defects such as Downs with the option to abort is routine in most OECD countries.

Stallman's view on this is not controversial at all.

Post reply on HN