@canacar @ariadne I was referring to https://blog.nns.ee/2021/04/03/modem-rce. I thought that Quectel was owned by Qualcomm for some reason, but it appears that it's not.

@ariadne I know, Quectel's use of it resulted in CVE-2021-31698 (arbitrary code execution as root)

@ariadne Quectel-tier code (Quectel EG25-G firmware used system(3) too). I don't think even metux would accept this PR, but he does seem to have reviewed it and didn't mention use of system(3) as a problem.

Edit: Originally this post said "Qualcomm" instead of "Quectel". I thought Quectel was owned by Qualcomm for some reason, but this appears to be untrue.

@q3k why do PLCs exist?

AccursedUnutterableXmlDeserialize

if sec is the reciprocal of cos and cosec is the reciprocal of sin, what is dnssec?

@fediplayssnake ... except in the on-hover preview on replies, they're both the same width. but I don't think there's a way to see that without actually making a reply

@fediplayssnake In Akkoma the 🥚 is a different width and since it's on the left now that messes up the rest of that row of the fox.

@mjg59 @dpk I asked the author (@RunxiYu) what happened to the git repo and they put it on Codeberg. This is what I was referring to, if you're interested: https://codeberg.org/lindenii/avocet. It's not Android and it's also not a traditional Linux distribution with a POSIX-like userspace, but it does use Linux. I would still count it as a Linux distribution, despite the unusual userspace.

@cwg1231 @alexia Open source developers need to make a living under capitalism, but if they do so by writing proprietary software then they’re not open source developers because their software isn’t open source (ignoring the fact that they could be developing other open source software, but the point is that non-commercial licenses are neither free nor open source, which is in fact explicitly stated on the OQL’s website). I’m not missing the point, I’m suggesting AGPL as a compromise that doesn’t make the software non-free but still puts off companies enough that they might buy a license.

The Minio thing is referring to the fact that it was recently put into maintenance only mode in favour of a proprietary fork called “Minio AIStor”. Minio apparently had a requirement that contributions be licensed under Apache-2.0 to project maintainers only, which is essentially equivalent to a CLA (it gives unequal rights to project maintainers and allows them to make a proprietary fork, as they did). AGPL would’ve prevented this if it wasn’t for that.

Personally, I have no idea what I will do to make a living when I finish full-time education. I don’t want to write proprietary software. My plan is to get elected as a politician, introduce UBI (and generally attempt to improve society), then when I’m done resign and write free software. This does seem quite difficult and likely to fail though.

@mjg59 @dpk I'm not just talking about Android, although Android does appear to be the only widely used (and actually existing) operating system like this. (The other specific example I'm thinking of hasn't actually been implemented yet, but presumably will be at some point and I still need a way to refer to it.)

@soph happy 0th birthday!

@mjg59 @dpk I need to be able to refer to and disambiguate between both meanings ("any operating system using Linux" and "any operating system using Linux with a normal POSIX-y userspace") and I think it would make more sense to invent a new phrase for the latter. Otherwise I don't know what to refer to the former as ("It's a distribution and it uses Linux but it isn't a Linux distribution" seems... weird)

@mjg59 @dpk I would count Android (and other systems with Linux and an non-POSIX-y userspace¹) as a Linux distribution. Other than perhaps using a non-mainline kernel, I don't see why Android wouldn't count.

If they're not Linux distributions, what are operating systems that use Linux with an alternative userspace called?

¹ This is not purely hypothetical. I am thinking of a specific proposal for a non-POSIX-y userspace for Linux which I cannot currently link here because the host of the git repo is down and it's not in archive.org (or anywhere else as far as I know).

@dpk @mjg59 There should be a word that includes GNU/Linux distributions as well as things with a normal POSIX-y userspace like Alpine and Chimera, but not Android. That's often what people mean, but there's no short way to refer to it.

@SeaDonut @nay @vozercozer It does have one major problem: it’s proprietary and they refuse to publish UI source code because they’re afraid of forks. I wouldn’t even consider it for this reason.

I’m probably going to try Nyxt whenever they implement WebExtensions.

@fediplayssnake I'm not sure which way is left and which is right. Is it relative to the fox or to the map?

I love how Mozart was the first music pirate, who transcribed — from memory — Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere” in 1771.

He went to a performance of it, and then went straight home to write down the notation. The sheet music was only allowed be owned by, like, three people… I think one of which was the Holy Roman Emperor at the time.

Mozart, the badass, then published the sheet music.

His sheer gumption was so welcomed that the Pope gave him the Order of the Golden Spur.

So remember: whenever you pirate something, you are following in the footsteps of Mozart himself.

@cwg1231 @alexia I assume you're suggesting using OQL + selling exceptions to it to companies in order to earn money? Since just using OQL and not doing that isn't going to help to earn any money.

Many people use the AGPL and sell exceptions, it's not necessary to use a non-free license for this. I don't particularly like this practice and would avoid contributing to such software because it requires a CLA of some sort which gives the maintainer more rights over the code than anyone else, which are often abused to go completely proprietary (most recently: minio), but it's better than proprietary software.

@alexia @cwg1231 Because not everyone is going to ignore the law, but anyone who's already ignoring the law (by violating human rights) is probably fine with ignoring copyright law too.

The GPL is useful despite the existence of some companies (like Allwinner) that continue to violate it, and it being reviewed by a lawyer is important because an overly broad clause could make everyone accidentally violate the license (which would make the license meaningless and equivalent to all-rights-reserved).

I think the clause of the OQL prohibiting materially supporting violators of human rights could plausibly be interpreted as prohibiting anyone who pays taxes from using the software, and this makes using any OQL-licensed software risky since the copyright holder could arbitrarily decide to sue you/tell you to stop using the software for this.

Another thing you could to to scare off companies from using your software without actually making it non-free is to require some sort of manifesto (similar to the GPL's preamble, or the Invariant Sections in various GNU manuals) to be distributed verbatim along with your software. Make it something that no company would want to distribute.