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posted by martyb on Sunday May 07 2017, @02:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the Freedom-of-Speech^W$$$ dept.

Last month, Congress voted to repeal FCC rules that would prevent internet service providers from selling your personal web browsing and app usage data. It was a decision that's unpopular across the country, regardless of party affiliation. If the politicians that voted in favor of the reversal thought no one would notice, there are some big ass signs in their districts that say otherwise.

The internet activists at the non-profit Fight for the Future have crowdfunded four billboards, so far, that shame the members of congress that voted for the repeal. The lawmakers that have the honor of being called out will now have to see their face along the highway when they return home. Those lucky few are Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Rutherford (R-FL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). These four lawmakers accepted a combined $196,905 in campaign contributions from the telecom industry in the last election cycle. Blackburn, in particular, has been a longtime enemy of net neutrality. Just last year, she brought up SOPA and tried to frame it as an initiative that would have increased cybersecurity.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:10PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:10PM (#505849)

    Crowdfunded billboards could be used to recruit coders to work on GNU HURD? Is there an old photo of RMS from when he was in his mid-20s that we could use? Since that's the age of hipster coder we need if we want FINISH THE HURD to go viral on Twitter? If only we could make GNU HURD look like a hip project for young people? Was RMS ever clean shaven or should we have to use GIMP to make him look not like a crazy hippie?

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:22PM (4 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:22PM (#505854) Journal

    People that must have a billboard to find a open source project to take interest in might not be the people you want on such project. The intelligent ones will find it anyway.

    (hmm,, what does that say about politics..)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:28PM (#505858)

      Sorry no, only pseudo intellectuals will find your project for intelligent people because they heard about it from word of mouth at the posers club.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:52PM (2 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:52PM (#505929) Journal

      I'm not sure that the Hurd is actually a good way forwards. The microkernel theory seems to entail excessive interprocess communication. Of course, if those 256 CPU processors ever show up, that might become reasonable.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:38PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:38PM (#506057) Journal

        There are overhead with the microkernel and HURD approach. But given that CPUs don't seem to get any faster anytime soon. But they do get more cores and it becomes easier with time to interconnect many CPUs into clusters. It seems it makes sense to exploit just that. The same way assembler made sense for 8-bit 1 MHz while C is a better choice for more powerful computers. With a few megabytes of RAM and fast storage, multi-user-process OS makes sense. And so on. I think the time is right for a microkernel. Another factor is the sheer complexity of kernels and software is a liability and then there's the always-up demand.

        One thing I like with HURD is that it's possible for each user to create their own filesystem not seen by others and not needing root.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @06:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @06:44AM (#506218)

        Hurd is a dead end in microkernel design. The idea that some things should be kept in-kernel for performance and that more featureful primitives will reduce IPC overhead has been consistently shown wrong with L4-based microkernels. SeL4, in particular, has incredibly low IPC overhead thanks to formal verification letting them optimize the crap out of their code. At this point, I think the main thing holding back microkernels is simply getting software written for them, not performance. Drivers specifically are a big pain because there has to be extensive compatibility layers written for other kernels code or they have to be written from scratch. There has been some work in getting netbsd drivers working on sel4 with rump kernels, and 2.4 linux drivers on some other L4 (pistachio iirc), but nothing ground-breaking yet. And of course, since it's such a niche field, the number of people who can actually do this right now is pretty small.

        But yeah, hurd is definitely not the way forward. It's a shame that there's been so much work put into it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:28PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:28PM (#505859)

    Was RMS ever clean shaven or should we have to use GIMP to make him look not like a crazy hippie?

    Have you seen hipsters lately? Big bushy beard are all the rage, he just needs to put that long luxurious hippy hair into a big man bun.

    Unfortunately since he doesn't use all the latest hipster communication (see surveillance) apps and HURD isn't some kind of pump and dump SaaS the hipsters won't touch it.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:35PM (4 children)

      by Gaaark (41) on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:35PM (#505861) Journal

      Oh FECK yeah! The only time i saw a man bun looking anything manly was on old Samurai movies such as The Seven Samurai (watch it, then watch Teh Magnificent Seven.... yeah, same movie, same characters, same lines even at times).

      Man buns look like feck, asses 'wearing' them look plain sad.... "Please look at me and appreciate how Samurai i look!...... please?.....PLEASE!!....."

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:57PM (3 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:57PM (#505931) Journal

        Hair styles are styles. They don't mean anything, and your reaction to them says more about what you are used to than anything objective.

        That said, you may be disliking the social group that things those are a good thing. I've never noticed one, so I don't know, but I remember being relieved when the Beatles made long hair acceptable so I could save the money I'd been spending on barbers. That meant people called me a hippie, but that didn't bother me much. In the area I lived there were enough divergent styles that it didn't matter.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday May 07 2017, @06:32PM (2 children)

          by Gaaark (41) on Sunday May 07 2017, @06:32PM (#505940) Journal

          Not getting a haircut because you want to save money is not a style.
          Putting your hair up in a bun because you want to look like Brad Pitt or a samurai, but just end up looking stupid IS a style choice... And a bad one from all I've seen.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 07 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)

            by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday May 07 2017, @09:26PM (#505993) Journal

            Not getting a haircut because you want to save money is not a style.

            Agreed, but I took GP as clearly equating "style" with "something that shouldn't matter," which seemed clear once it was declared that "they don't mean anything."

            "Style" is obviously a social construct with great meaning to those who partake in it. In fact, one might argue that style is ONLY about [social] "meaning," rather than, say utility (which is often contrasted with purely "stylistic" features).

            Someone who is declaring "I'd prefer to just not cut my hair at all and let it be what it will be because style is meaningless" is obviously not in any sense an arbiter of "style."

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @12:32AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @12:32AM (#506080)

              . ...let it be what it will be because style is meaningless" is obviously not in any sense an arbiter of "style."

              Oddly enough, since I stopped going to barbers (I hated them as a kid), long hair seems to have gone in and out of style several times. It's slightly amusing to watch the trends...

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:43PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:43PM (#506060) Journal

      Unhip and perceived boredom works as a hipster deterrent? *yummy* ;-)

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:32PM (2 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:32PM (#505918) Journal

    Crowdfunded billboards could be used to recruit coders to work on GNU HURD?

    Well, sarcasm aside and serious for a moment, let's consider some of rms's policy items...

    1. He perceived a need for a free OS as a base to run free software...
    2. He conceived GNU, a proposed free drop-in Unix-replacement OS...
    3. Many pieces of GNU were written, enough to make an OS save for a useful kernel...
    4. Linus Torvalds released his kernel Linux under the terms of the GPL...
    5. People could, and did, combine the Linux kernel with GNU tools and parts and make an OS.

    So far so good.

    5. And people credit Linux for the system, since Linux made the disparate parts a system in the first place...
    6. And so they listen to the philosophy of Linux creator Linus, who thinks proprietary software is okay *shrug* and doesn't see the big deal...
    7. Instead of listening to rms, the FSF, and the GNU folks who promote the view that software should be free as a matter of ethics...

    This bothers rms, and understandably so, because of course he'd like people to listen to him, thus spreading his philosophies.

    Time passes...

    Now, after lots of software progress over the years, from the Linux point of view, the "lots of other pieces" needed to make a free operating system out of linux could come from multiple places, not necessarily GNU. A lot of that is in busybox alone, for example. Sure, the GNU tools are often nicer, or more feature-rich, but the point is there are other usable, working tools in place right now to make a complete free operating system out of linux + other things that are not GNU.

    But from the GNU/rms point of view, after those same years, that "one remaining piece" needed to make a free operating system out of GNU (the Kernel, "HURD") is still a steaming pile of unusability: no 64-bit, no USB support, no drivers to speak of, crashy-memoryhogging-unstable. It's fun to play with--Debian GNU/HURD is a nice technical preview that's even easy to install--but you wouldn't run a server, much less your workstation, with it.

    Seems like the things Stallman is complaining about (at least in the OS -> spreading philosophy area) would clear up pretty quickly if someone would either "finish HURD"* or otherwise write a kernel that the FSF could combine with in-house GNU projects and release as "GNU 1.0: Gnu's Not Unix". Presto, shiny operating system composed of all free software, put out by folks who live the ethical free software life in the free world.

    *This (finishing HURD/Making a GNU non-linux operating system) isn't a goal, by the way; according to gnu.org [gnu.org] (bottom of page), any continued work on the HURD happens "because it is an interesting technical project."

    But maybe it should be a coherent goal: Maybe that might help Stallman, and allies that he has, also gain mindshare in the fight for things like digital rights and digital privacy at issue with Congress' pimping of its constituents' private data created with their relationships with ISPs.

    In a sense, crowdfunding billboards to shame slimeball lawmakers, and crowdfunding billboards looking for HURD coders, are two aspects of the same mindshare campaign.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 08 2017, @12:21AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 08 2017, @12:21AM (#506072) Journal

      Actually lack of USB support can almost be seen as a security benefit ;-) but quite unpractical.
      Driver support tend to come with many developers using the system and commercial entities using it.

      The interesting concepts that can be developed into a "killer" OS for the feature can be:
        * Using a microkernel can get rid of a lot of system instabilities, provide security compartmentalization, make development easier etc.
        * By having interprocess handling, services, drivers and filesystem running as user mode processes both security and development becomes easier. Having a filesystem crash right now usually crashes the kernel too.
        * When the CPU is abstracted as a service, other processors that are physically elsewhere may be integrated with less special case handling. So that it looks like the local processor have many more cores than it actually has.
        * The microkernel decreases the attack surface in comparison with monolithic kernel.

      The microkernel may possible be equipped with system monitors that thwart unauthorized system operations from other security "rings" (hint -2). Moving processes between distant CPUs may perhaps also be implemented. And hypervisor alike functionality without the need for the CPU to support it.

      All software projects are a pile of crap until it's developed into something better.

    • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 08 2017, @12:26AM

      by butthurt (6141) on Monday May 08 2017, @12:26AM (#506078) Journal

      [...] the "lots of other pieces" needed to make a free operating system out of linux could come from multiple places, not necessarily GNU.

      Possibilities include Darwin, OpenSolaris, Plan 9, Inferno, Minix and *BSD. The initial release of the Linux kernel was 17 September 1991 and 386BSD came out just six months later, on 12 March 1992.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD [wikipedia.org]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel [wikipedia.org]