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You might recall [a few weeks ago](https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/18026563) that I requested from a well-known large and somewhat litigious company the source code of the modification they made to a certain GPL debugger, and that they grudgingly agreed after a long time. So I set out to work on the pile of code they sent me and managed to extract their modifications and port them fo the latest version of that GPL tool... apart from one driver for their debug probes that we use throughout our company: the cunning bastards left a stub in the open-source debugger (I have the code for that) and that stubs talks to the rest of the driver in the form of a closed-source TCP server. It's a blatant trick to go around the GPL by taking advantage of the grey area surrounding linking in the GPL - i.e. the question of whether a closed-source program can be linked to GPL code and not become GPL itself, which still hasn't been tested in court to my knowledge. If I recall correctly, the FSF is of the opinion that anything that dynamically links to GPL code becomes GPL too, but that's just an opinion. And of course, here in this case, the aforementioned company added one degree of separation between their closed-source driver and the GPL tool that uses it by making it a server, so whatever argument against linking to GPL code becomes even weaker. Anyway, as you can imagine, I'm disappointed: my work is 90% there, but I still don't have that one driver and their closed-source faux-server is half-broken and dog-slow because of the time it takes to spawn the server and communicate with it through TCP, and I can't fix it. And I'm 100% certain that if I asked them to send me the source code for that, they'd tell me to suck eggs. But here's what happened: I got so tired of their shenanigans that I started investigating other debug probes I could use instead of their proprietary junk. And after quite a lot of investigation, I found one solution based on open hardware and open software that, with some careful configuration, works 2x to 3x faster than their proprietary debug probe. Wow! I didn't even know it was possible, and I probably wouldn't have researched it if I had had all I needed to make what we already own works. Long story short: I proposed that my company replace all our existing proprietary debug probes with the open hardware one and my boss agreed. That's like 20 probes in total, between R&D, testing and production, and at the tune $266.99 per probe for the original proprietary one, that's $5339.80 the egregious GPL-violating company won't get from us. Not to mention renewal of the license for their IDE that we've been using for almost 2 decades, because finally, at long last, after over a month of solid work, I finally managed to free up our source code from their vendor lock-in and make it compile, debug and flash using open-source tools from start to finish! So yeah, I didn't get what I originally wanted from that company. That's the bad news. But in the end I ended up better off without it, and that's the good news 🙂
I've seen these all over Europe. Some have simple images of the cross flashing, some have windows screensaver esque animations, and some have 3d renders of various things rotating in all sorts of ways. Why is that? Wouldn't a simple green cross be enough to get the point across, or do they need to be overly verbose? [Here's the full video instead of a gif](http://protosparky.uk/cdn/20240705_162324.mp4)
Recently I installed Firefox on my parents' phones (uBlock Origin too) in order to make them surf the web more securely as we've had a few cases in the past with malware. (Google Chrome, the advertisement company's browser, does not like ad blockers. Wonder why?) All they care about it is it openning Google.com and apparently they don't like Firefox's home screen. There are only options for "the last tab", "home screen" and "home screen after few hours of inactivity" but no option to go to a specific web address. In this case, google.com. So... how do?
Couple of months prior, I read an article on Mozilla, where they did a research on automakers and found none comply to good privacy measures. I am planning to buy a used car. I want to know how the data is collected and transmitted. The car comes with a connected app though I am not planning to use it. It also has apple car play and android auto. Should I use those? The article states some manufacturers even records sexual activities. How are they transmitting these informations? Through connected phones? My use is fairly basic, I want to use the Bluetooth audio system in the car for listening to music on my phone. I use maps on my phone. What about car servicing? Can they access stored information?
I recently watched videos of Bernie Sanders, who americans call left-wing, and maybe compared to other american politicians he is, but compared to russian opposition he is very like Boris Nemtsov and Alexey Navalny. First is literal founder of Union of Right Forces, second is considered to be center-right.
It's in the eye of the beholder, of course. But it would be great to see some solid recommendations.
Those who don't identify as a fella also welcome to answer! I'm getting tired of my wallet and I'm hoping to get some new ideas. Current EDC is my phone, wallet, and keys on a lanyard. Whatchu got?
https://github.com/umutcamliyurt/TimeLockCrypt
What is your general attitude towards those who believe in religion whether they are jewish, Muslim, Christian etc etc. Do you get on well with any religious friends and neighbours? Have you ever thought of believing in a religion at some point? If you do not like the faiths, why? If you DO, also why? Does this come from your family? Maybe something went bad during your life? I get that Lemmy might have the same stereotype in Reddit that there are loads of atheists, but there's a good reason why despite criticism of religion, it is still here. P.S. I am not religious or anti religious in any fashion, I am agnostic.
I have an Acer Chromebook R11 which has reached End of Life and won't receive updates (which is insane, I bought it new four years ago). I have checked, and my model is now fully supported by most Linux distros. I need suggestions for a lightweight distro to use. I will use the machine for surfing, playing Pixel Dungeon, streaming some indie games over Moonlight/Steam Headless and manage my home server over ssh. So nothing major. I want something lightweight and really low maintenance. Specs: * Processor: 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron N3150 (quad-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.08GHz with Turbo Boost) * Graphics: Integrated Intel HD Graphics * Memory: 4GB DDR3L * Storage: 32GB (with SD card reader for more storage) I have a lot of experience with Arch-based (EndeavourOS, Manjaro), Ubuntu-based (Mint, PopOS) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian) distros, but I am open for other suggestions
I was thinking about going immutable for a long time and now I'm choosing a distro to hop to. My question is: what are good immutable distros other that Fedora Silverblue spins, UBlue family and NixOS? Maybe someone uses/used any? What is/was your experience with it?