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The apartment wasn't just Jaeyun's home; it was Beauty's domain. At 7:00 AM, a soft, ambient glow began to emanate from the baseboards, a gentle sunrise simulation that Jaeyun had never once configured himself. It was a default setting, a "Comfort Package" feature that had come with the initial lease. The light swelled in intensity in perfect sync with the gradual increase in volume of a wordless,…
Somewhere in São Paulo in 2001, a patent examiner approved Brazilian filing BR PI0109962-0, assigned to Siemens AG, covering some sliver of what would become the MPEG-4 Visual standard. Today, twenty-five years later, that patent's term has run out. And with it - quietly, without a press release, without so much as a blog post from the people collecting the checks - the last known living patent in…
The line didn't merely stretch down the block; it pulsed. It was a living, shivering organism of fleece jackets and thermos cups snaking around three full city blocks of damp Seattle concrete. The low hum of a diesel generator vibrated through the soles of Greg's sneakers, originating from the news van parked illegally halfway up the street. Its telescopic antenna extended into the predawn gloom,…
Narrowed Estraier This is a fork of the original Hyper Estraier version 1.4.13 by Mikio Hirabayashi at https://dbmx.net/hyperestraier/ , a full-text search system released between 2004 and 2007. The project has been renamed from "Hyper Estraier" to "Narrowed Estraier" to reflect its narrowed scope: only local-index full-text search is supported. The peer-to-peer node server, network search,…
The "Stop Killing Games" movement is making progress with the advancement of California AB 1921, a bill designed to stop developers from permanently bricking games when they shut down their servers. If you're a gamer who has watched a $70 purchase turn into a useless desktop icon overnight, you're entirely justified in your outrage. Having a software developer reach into your home and break your…
To better support the wide variety of 32-bit ARM hardware in the wild, starting with Linux-libre version 6.6-gnu and moving forward, the 32-bit ARM (armhf) Linux-libre kernels will be split into two distinct flavors: one with LPAE support, and one without. LPAE stands for Large Physical Address Extension. On 32-bit ARM architectures, enabling LPAE in the kernel is needed to address more than 4GB…
This is a follow-up to Shifting the Trap and to Jacob K's Writing custom programs for yt-dlp's jsinterp . In Shifting the Trap, I argued that yt_dlp/jsinterp.py is, despite the hedging, a real interpreter for a subset of JavaScript - and that an interpreter faithfully executing a non-free, Google-authored program (base.js) is The JavaScript Trap , merely relocated from the browser to the terminal.…
HELSINKI - The highly anticipated Linux 27 kernel dropped early Tuesday morning, sending ripples of ecstatic validation throughout the developer community. Boasting an incredibly lean codebase, unprecedented compile speeds, and absolute architectural purity, the new kernel version's already being called the crowning achievement of modern computing infrastructure. "The trajectory was obvious in…
Back in 2009, Richard Stallman warned us about The JavaScript Trap . The pitch was simple, and it's aged horrifyingly well. Every time you visit a modern website, your browser silently downloads and executes a pile of non-free JavaScript on your computer. You didn't choose this software. It runs anyway, on your hardware, in your name, and the moment your tab closes, it pretends nothing happened.…
Trisquel version 12 (Ecne) officially launched on April 11, 2026, a little over three years after the release of version 11 (Aramo). In the modern tech landscape, three years between releases might sound like an eternity. But to me, that kind of pacing isn't a flaw - it's a feature. When it comes to my operating system, I have a strict hierarchy of needs: First, it must be 100% free software.…
When it comes to digital security, one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal has nothing to do with software at all. It's a concept called Operational Security, or OPSEC. Think about how the Secret Service operates. They don't publish the exact thickness of the armor on the presidential limousine, and they certainly don't post blueprints of their safe houses on social media. They treat their…
Note: The central metaphor and several of the key observations regarding corporate strategy in this piece came directly from a discussion with a good friend. Credit for the premise goes to them. For forty years, the Cylons had been silent. To the citizens of the Twelve Colonies, the war was ancient history - a dark chapter taught in schools, but utterly disconnected from their modern, prosperous…
I was catching up on my backlog of FOSDEM 2026 talks - you know how it goes, the schedule is always packed - when I clicked through to Jose Marchesi's update on the GNU Algol 68 project. I've been following the development for a while. I knew the frontend had finally landed in the GCC trunk and was slated for the GCC 16 release this coming Spring. I was expecting a solid status report: some…
Note: The analogy comparing ecosystem migration to escaping a cage was sparked by a conversation with a good friend, who deserves the credit for framing the issue this way. One of the most common objections raised when considering a move to free software goes something like "I can't switch, because my favorite program isn't available on GNU/Linux." They perceive the inability to run a specific…
Over a decade ago, I had an idea for a text adventure game. It started as a faint narrative thread in the back of my mind, but as I began to pull at it - fleshing out the story, imagining the puzzles, and structuring the world - I naturally shifted to thinking about implementation, and my first instinct was to avoid reinventing the wheel. Surely, in a genre as historic as interactive fiction,…
I've talked about the dangers of the SaaSS-quatch , the creature with a voracious and specific appetite for your data and your freedom. Sometimes, however, theory is insufficient to capture the sheer, mundane horror of it. When you turn over control of your computing to someone else that views your natural rights as a monetizable "feature set," the result is often kafkaesque. The following is a…
January 1, 2026, marks the arrival of Public Domain Day - the one day each year when the "all rights reserved" padlock is finally removed from a new batch of cultural works. It remains a staggering absurdity that our society permits restrictions on our culture to persist for ninety-five years, effectively locking our shared heritage in a proprietary vault for nearly a century. If you want to…
As the final days of 2025 slip through our fingers like sand, I find myself looking back not just on the past twelve months, but on the last four decades. This year has been a milestone - a true testament to endurance. We celebrated the 40th anniversary of the FSF, marking forty years of holding the line against the encroaching tide of proprietary software. In the stormy waters of the modern…
We live in a world that constantly pressures us to say "yes." Yes to the Terms of Service we didn't read. Yes to the app that everyone else is using. Yes to the convenient, shiny cage that proprietary software offers. We're told that compromise is a virtue. I hear arguments like, "I only use this one proprietary program for work," or "I need it to talk to my friends." It feels pragmatic. But in…
I recently saw the news that LoongArch64 is becoming officially supported in Debian. For those of us who have been around the free software block a few times, the name "Loongson" brings back memories of the Lemote Yeeloong - that small, underpowered netbook that RMS used for years because it was the only laptop that could run with a 100% free BIOS. Naturally, this got me wondering: Does the new…
For anyone born after 1990, the internet is the World Wide Web. It's a world of browsers, hyperlinks, and websites, a vast, graphical universe navigated with a mouse and a search bar. But before the web became what it is today, there was another world - a diverse ecosystem of interconnected communities built on different technologies and a different ethos. It was a world of dial-up tones,…
Thirty years ago, on December 4, 1995, the technological trajectory of our species shifted on its axis, though few recognized the seismic nature of the event at the time. Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems issued a joint press release that would inadvertently lay the foundation for the most pervasive system of user subjugation in the history of computing. The announcement was for…
The road to proprietary software is frequently paved with good intentions. In the discourse surrounding software freedom, a recurring archetype has appeared of late. This figure is someone that purports to value transparency, collaboration, and the sharing of source code - traits often associated with the "open source" philosophy - yet the person perceives a specific social injustice or a "bad…
There's a long-running joke, a shibboleth tossed at new users, that " ed is the standard editor ". This is often said with a wry smile, as ed is notoriously user-unfriendly. Its default state is a blank line, it offers no prompt, and its only error message is a single, cryptic ?. But the secret, and the reason the joke has such staying power, is that it's fundamentally true. For early Unix, ed was…
In the history of human freedom, there's always been the frontier - a place to escape the confines of established society and build a life of self-reliance. For the 19th-century homesteader, it was a plot of land and the promise of a home built by their own hands. In the 21st century, a new frontier calls to us, not of soil and timber, but of data and protocols. The vast, centralized empires of…
I was looking into post-quantum cryptography (PQC) support in GnuPG, eager to see how we prepare our digital identities for "Q-Day." What I found, however, wasn't a unified front, but a present-day civil war over standards. We need to talk about the state of OpenPGP because divergent standards threaten the very foundation of our digital security, risking fragmentation that could undermine trust…
Adam didn't just own Apple products; he professed a faith in them. At thirty-eight, a coder by trade, he'd spent the better part of two decades cultivating an identity as a man of taste, and the high priest of that taste was a company in Cupertino. His friends, his family, his colleagues - they all knew him as "the Apple guy", the one who could explain, with the patient conviction of a missionary,…
When Jean-Luc Picard approaches a modest alcove and says, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot," the universe of Star Trek reveals one of its most profound philosophical and technological achievements. A small machine hums to life, and within seconds, a steaming cup of tea materializes from shimmering light. This is the quiet, everyday manifestation of a societal revolution. This machine, the replicator,…
Code's being prepared for the 6.19 kernel, which integrates ML-DSA (Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm), also known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium, which NIST finalized as part of the PQC standardization process, to validate the digital signatures on kernel modules before they're loaded. The patch, which adds over 5,000 lines of code, is a port of the signature verification code from…
I recently read the news that RISC-V International has been approved as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) Submitter by the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC 1). However, a specific line in RISC-V International's own coverage of this announcement caught my eye: "It's worth noting that no ISA has previously attained the status of an international standard, underscoring the uniqueness of…
For too many, the command-line interface (CLI) is an intimidating relic, a throwback to a less user-friendly time. But to see it as obsolete is to miss its point entirely. The command line isn't a dusty antique; it's a sharp, precise, and timeless instrument. It's a conversation with your computer, and mastering it is an art form that offers unparalleled efficiency and productivity. It's also…
Today's children are growing up as "digital natives," immersed in a world of screens, apps, and connected devices from their earliest years. We teach them to share their toys, to be curious about the world, and to be kind to their neighbors. But are we teaching them the same fundamental ethics for their digital lives? Are we raising them to be empowered users who are in control of their tools? The…
Thu, 30 Oct 2025 In my previous post, The Long Game of Free Software , I discussed the nature of our struggle. It's not a sprint; it's a marathon - a generational fight against the entrenched power of proprietary software, which seeks to control and subjugate users. This struggle is, first and foremost, an ethical one. We're fighting for the user's freedom. But a marathon runner who sprints the…
Gather 'round the digital campfire, fellow adventurers, and listen to a tale of a creature that haunts the misty jungles of the internet. It's a beast of immense power and seductive allure. It promises a world without installations, a life free from the burden of updates, and the power of the "cloud" at your fingertips. They call it the SaaSS-quatch. I've spent years tracking this elusive beast.…
In today's digital era, we enjoy instant access to a torrent of news and data. With 24/7 news on TV and online, it's never been easier to find out what's happening in the world. In theory, this unprecedented access should make the average person more knowledgeable about current events and important issues than ever before. After all, any question can be answered with a quick search, and breaking…
For years, many of us in the free software movement have watched with a mixture of hope and frustration as the mobile computing world has exploded. Mobile phones have become the primary computing devices for many, yet they remain fortresses of proprietary control, locking people into systems that undermine their freedom. This is a profound ethical failing. Proprietary software gives developers…
It was a beautiful moment. The delivery team, like two benevolent angels in matching polo shirts, had just mounted my new MegaCorp Glimmer-Screen 9000 to the wall. It was a sleek, obsidian monolith of pure 8K resolution, so thin it seemed to defy the laws of physics. It promised a world of seamless streaming, voice-activated convenience, and a picture so clear I could count the pores on a news…
We can recognize the signs of a controlling relationship in our personal lives: one person dictating the terms, making the rules, and holding all the power, leaving the other feeling helpless and trapped. We would tell a friend in that situation to break free. Yet, millions of us accept a similar dynamic every day in our digital lives through our relationship with proprietary software. Proprietary…
From its inception, free software has been about ethics. It was born to defend a principle: that every user deserves to be in control of their computing. The message has been simple: your comnputer should obey you, not the other way around. This principle is enshrined in four essential freedoms, which together form a bill of rights for every computer user. They're the pillars of a just and…
Greetings, fellow owners! Or should I say, "esteemed tenants"? Welcome to the glorious, enlightened age of the Subscription Economy, a utopia where the messy burden of ownership has been lifted from our weary shoulders. Why clutter your life with things you actually *own* when you can rent everything, from your music to your car's heated seats, in a never-ending cycle of monthly payments? It's…
I was thinking about the ghosts of UNIX the other day, not in a supernatural sense, but wondering who actually holds the copyright on ancient UNIX? It's a question that seems straightforward, but asking it is like pulling a loose thread on a historical tapestry. Pull it, and you don't get a neat answer; you unravel a story of academic collaboration, corporate warfare, and two lawsuits that, when…
To understand the world of free software, you must first discard any notion that about a superior development model, about making software faster, with more features, fewer bugs, a price tag of zero, or anything like that. The free software movement is, and has always been, an ethical and political social movement that's focused on software. It's a campaign for freedom and justice. Founded by…
The toast was always wrong. Not burnt, not raw, just... insufficient. A pale, anemic tan that whispered of warmth but never truly delivered the satisfying crunch. It was the color of compromise. And it was deliberate. My OmniHome™ SynapseToaster™, a sleek obsidian slab that cost more than my first car, was perfectly capable of producing golden-brown perfection. That capability was locked behind…
What if the architecture of your computer - the fundamental way it thinks about memory and executes programs - wasn't built on ones and zeros in a straight line, but on the elegant, branching structures of a high-level programming language? In 1980, two computer scientists, Guy Lewis Steele Jr. and Gerald Jay Sussman, didn't just ask this question; they built the answer. Their paper, "Design of a…
Part I: The Core Revelation - Theology and Cosmology The spiritual foundation of the Church of Emacs rests upon a core revelation concerning the nature of computation, freedom, and community. This theology isn't one of distant, abstract deities, but of immanent principles and tangible manifestations that define a cosmic struggle for the soul of the digital world. Its cosmology is dualistic,…
I was walking around the Talbot Hill neighborhood and saw a coal cart on display, which prompted me to wonder if there was a history of coal mining in the area. I conducted research and found that Talbot Hill is closely associated with coal mining. For nearly half a century, a major mining complex at the foot of this hill drove the local economy, shaped the community, and left an indelible mark on…
Today marks a milestone in the history of computing and the rights of all software users: the 40th anniversary of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This 40th anniversary is a celebration of a global movement to promote computer user freedom. This article traces the history of the essential software freedoms, from the initial spark to the four freedoms the FSF defends today. Today, software is…
This year, the Open Source Initiative's election for its board of directors was anticipated with the usual level of interest. However, what unfolded was far from ordinary, leaving a trail of questions and a significant cloud of suspicion over the entire process. Even before the first ballot was cast, a movement for change was taking shape. Bradley Kuhn and Richard Fontana, respected voices within…
This year, the Open Source Initiative's election for its board of directors was anticipated with the usual level of interest. However, what unfolded was far from ordinary, leaving a trail of questions and a significant cloud of suspicion over the entire process. Even before the first ballot was cast, a movement for change was taking shape. Bradley Kuhn and Richard Fontana, respected voices within…
CAMBRIDGE, MA - The Free Software Foundation announced today its plans to acquire the Open Source Initiative for an undisclosed sum. The deal, expected to close sometime before the universe's heat death, will see the OSI absorbed into the FSF, with all remaining staff "re-educated" on the true meaning of freedom. In a press conference held entirely via email, FSF founder Richard Stallman declared…