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    Karl Fogel

    rants.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2007

    Karl Fogel, an open source developer and author, writes about free software, licensing, governance and politics.

    Visit blogRSSHN submissions
    Open Source & LinuxPrivacy & Policy
    What HN says

    HN links it for essays on open source and surveillance news; commenters cite its licensing post, and one notes the comment system is broken.

    Stats for nerds
    16HN people shared it
    13linked in comments
    176story points
    Jul 2023last shared
    2010people per year2023

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      Why OccupyGPL is wrong
      1 person · 77 points · first shared 2015 · 80 comments on HN
    2. 2
      Why not to sign the anti-Stallman petition on GitHub
      1 person · 65 points · first shared 2021 · 47 comments on HN
    3. 3
      The Right to Lie and Google’s “Web Environment Integrity”
      1 person · 15 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
    4. 4
      Bug Growth is Proportional to User Growth, and Bugs are not Technical Debt.
      2 people · 6 points · first shared 2010 · Discussion on HN
    5. 5
      New York State Senate bill offers tax credit for open source dev expenses
      1 person · 3 points · first shared 2015 · Discussion on HN
    6. 6
      In-depth analysis and context regarding SFLC / Conservancy trademark dispute
      2 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · Discussion on HN
    7. 7
      Wikipudiate?
      1 person · 2 points · first shared 2007 · Discussion on HN
    8. 8
      Thread Theory (2008)
      1 person · 2 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
    9. 9
      How Not to Release Software
      1 person · 2 points · first shared 2008 · Discussion on HN
    10. 10
      How easy is a Morozov-style takedown of Evgeny Morozov?
      1 person · 1 points · first shared 2013 · Discussion on HN

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • superkuhJul 2023

      His comment system is currently broken and will just 404 and return you to a URL at https://rants.org/%5Ehttp:/your.ip.addy.here/. So I guess I might as well post here instead,

      >My web browser (currently Mozilla Firefox running on Debian GNU/Linux, thank you very much) will never cooperate with this bizarre and misguided proposal.

      Mozilla used to be about user freedoms. Lately Mozilla has been a front-runner on turning off and disabling non-TLS just HTTP support. They will likely be one of the first browsers to remove support for it and eventually HTTP/1.1 as a whole. ref: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/04/30/deprecating-non-secure-http/

      Given that HTTP/3 as implemented by Mozilla cannot connect to self-signed TLS cert websites this means the future of Firefox is as a browser that can only visit websites that third party TLS CA corporations periodically approve (even if those corporations are currently benign, like LetsEncrypt). Does this remind you of anything? That's not to say other browsers are better in this respect. Mozilla's Firefox and it's forks are the least worst... it's just everything is getting much worse all together.

    • StekoJun 2013

      The Bob Cesca item this mediaite post is building on makes the case that Greenwald saw what he wanted to see:

      I’m going to put it all out there and let the chips fall where they may: I’m increasingly convinced that Glenn Greenwald’s reporting on the NSA story is tainted by his well-known agenda, leading him to make broad claims for the purposes of inciting outrage.

      http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/greenwald-sticks-with-his-story-in-spite-of-growing-questions/

      See also:

      http://www.rants.org/2013/06/11/epic_botch_of_prism_story/

    • tptacekJun 2013

      Why am I the one who needs to reserve judgement? I'm not the one saying things like "the name PRISM suggests optical intercepts on backbones", or "the name Palantir suggests that that company is acting as an all-seeing eye for NSA".

      I'm not the only person with these concerns. Here's Karl Fogel of QuestionCopyright.org:

      http://www.rants.org/2013/06/11/epic_botch_of_prism_story/

      And here's Mark Jaquith of Wordpress:

      https://medium.com/prism-truth/82a1791c94d3

    • retro212Apr 2010

      We've considered this license, but according to this blog post http://www.rants.org/2007/06/26/when-is-open-source-not-open-source/ it is not true open source license.

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