From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mp1 ([2001:41d0:2:bcc0::]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits)) by ms0.migadu.com with LMTPS id QBNIHm3tjWC3YAEAgWs5BA (envelope-from ) for ; Sun, 02 May 2021 02:08:13 +0200 Received: from aspmx1.migadu.com ([2001:41d0:2:bcc0::]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits)) by mp1 with LMTPS id oFfVGW3tjWB2dgAAbx9fmQ (envelope-from ) for ; Sun, 02 May 2021 00:08:13 +0000 Received: from lists.gnu.org (lists.gnu.org [209.51.188.17]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by aspmx1.migadu.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DA3571BE02 for ; Sun, 2 May 2021 02:08:12 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost ([::1]:33720 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lczed-00030V-SS for larch@yhetil.org; Sat, 01 May 2021 20:08:11 -0400 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60720) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lczeH-00030O-Vk for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 May 2021 20:07:49 -0400 Received: from cyberdimension.org ([80.67.179.20]:38784 helo=gnutoo.cyberdimension.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_CHACHA20_POLY1305:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lczeE-0003Ee-8s for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 May 2021 20:07:49 -0400 Received: from gnutoo.cyberdimension.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by cyberdimension.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 7bc4612d; Sun, 2 May 2021 00:03:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from primarylaptop.localdomain (localhost.localdomain [::1]) by gnutoo.cyberdimension.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id aab3d9e5; Sun, 2 May 2021 00:03:28 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sun, 2 May 2021 02:15:31 +0200 From: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli To: Leo Le Bouter Subject: Making technology more inclusive Was: Leaving the GNU Guix community Message-ID: <20210502021531.4a363795@primarylaptop.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <888c71d21bbbc8dc7e8b4d5396694c83@zaclys.net> References: <888c71d21bbbc8dc7e8b4d5396694c83@zaclys.net> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.17.8 (GTK+ 2.24.33; i686-pc-linux-gnu) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Sig_/gsxO60wV/csm=G=HcPLlJt/"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha256 Received-SPF: pass client-ip=80.67.179.20; envelope-from=GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org; helo=gnutoo.cyberdimension.org X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: guix-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+larch=yhetil.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" X-Migadu-Flow: FLOW_IN ARC-Message-Signature: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yhetil.org; s=key1; t=1619914093; h=from:from:sender:sender:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date: message-id:message-id:to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version: content-type:content-type:in-reply-to:in-reply-to: references:references:list-id:list-help:list-unsubscribe: list-subscribe:list-post; bh=iDVbg5/P1v5oIEBcWT9/lwDHdTE2j4ztUY6JtnTeUGo=; b=m3jTS/x03F0s8dmhAuKbPumpd3l4iYxaTU9LhjHeeLffmHHITa/5e+ggkC/585Nb9rWhC6 b1BFiZBQU6Wi9Ry6LfSJOCPT93UHrcoAPUu6Ttsy+lMDTA9n9isUa6zLf7nFZC5tp2iVw/ O7r+EjlvxrAUY2fRUEo9BdLjBJaVEENd3Ua5GMRUPLymAvntwsG2+XZ3lt92FBHICgI7C3 9cApm0Ad1azZLk0Ll49sWe9w2m02WKN/58s0Pnx9XDC/n914LuzkRGFt7/1dIz9s9dL9cH C3vjZgeHR4KhMD/d/JJ/64akovouaqNsRL9DWShXSpLBpwp/IQ/WVAufYvBbcg== ARC-Seal: i=1; s=key1; d=yhetil.org; t=1619914093; a=rsa-sha256; cv=none; b=k8TSIW0cCrQlJsYM2DKrJSUfJfS9cjYvgmmu0n2yUjJRovaRETfJCmuuyN/jicV4EWQMHD iI0PvwctgX5b0Cn8loObqnZ08rAfE4dtuHhYIYIGKFhiGys55zA2CxW3Ai8BZNH2QO82F0 F/o0h8yyrsLnqQYjEwPUeLmBgLj33/9+VmgbtK4s5100q7PCs7rAb63chqIRMekdXeXfKb n2pAFgSBNQPe2c7AqDmZtSNG3xX8KORWUDCaKawLGOS8Cn7C2XCqxL39c266CUEzndp2qX 2TXYjlqV0khhnML+5JEC5+0Yn4lkGkgKGqxgzDBHCWCCiOuIhE9Nmn/XscgzIg== ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; aspmx1.migadu.com; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (aspmx1.migadu.com: domain of guix-devel-bounces@gnu.org designates 209.51.188.17 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=guix-devel-bounces@gnu.org X-Migadu-Spam-Score: -4.56 Authentication-Results: aspmx1.migadu.com; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (aspmx1.migadu.com: domain of guix-devel-bounces@gnu.org designates 209.51.188.17 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=guix-devel-bounces@gnu.org X-Migadu-Queue-Id: DA3571BE02 X-Spam-Score: -4.56 X-Migadu-Scanner: scn0.migadu.com X-TUID: M2ItTRCbXJZb --Sig_/gsxO60wV/csm=G=HcPLlJt/ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, 30 Apr 2021 01:43:37 +0200 Leo Le Bouter wrote: > I think that the technicality of software development must be > redefined so that the hierarchy between the experienced and the > beginner disappears [...] I've been thinking a lot about these topics, and there are radical solutions that can work today, but the scope is quite limited. Sadly, technology in general is way too complex to enable any individual to be able to practically exercise the freedom to modify how it works at every level: For instance, computer hardware is way too complex, not everyone is able to modify how the RAM initialization is done in Libreboot. And that's just for the software side that is visible to users. There is also a big interest in modifying how the hardware works, for instance by making custom CPUs on FPGAs, which again requires domain specific knowledge. Despite that, several indigenous communities run their own GSM networks[1] and while doing that at least some of them seem to have managed to do what you are talking about (remove power relationships between the people with specific knowledge and the people without that specific knowledge): - The people running the network have to obey what the village assembly decided. So everybody decide together with the people running the networks. - They also managed to have the protocol modified for them at a deeper level[2] to make their GSM network behave more like peer to peer networks between villages instead of the way GSM networks are typically deployed. Note that in this example above many of the communities that run their own GSM networks didn't chose (yet?) to have Internet access for instance so the scope is quite limited. Things get more complicated when trying to bring this amount of control down to every single individual for every aspect of every digital technologies. And many people have personal computers this also looks important to reflect on. The approach taken by lisp machines was interesting: it enabled users to practically modify all the source code (most or all of it wasn't free software if I understood right). They used CPUs made specifically to run lisp code to do that but as I understand the downside was that, even if most of the code was in lisp, there was probably still some code in assembly or other languages as the lisp interpreter was probably not written in lisp. Another approach that I find interesting is the one taken by operating systems like OpenBSD (which is not FSDG compliant) where the design is much more simple. The downside is that it lacks many functionalities that some users might miss. Hyperbola (which is FSDG compliant) is working on a new operating system which will reuse the OpenBSD kernel, so it might be interesting. Here the bar is probably higher as it requires to be able to write C to modify the kernel, but at least some part of it looks a lot more simple than Linux. For instance if we compare OpenBSD's pledge system call and Linux's secomp, pledge is only one driver in the kernel whereas secomp also requires a compiler and so on. And more importantly, software is being written to take advantage of secomp, so I guess that at least in some cases some people depend on secomp because of that. One approach which seems to also have been taken by Guix is to work to make it more simple to modify how things works. Since lisp is parsable it might even be possible to write graphical user interfaces (in lisp for instance) to enable users to modify how the system is configured, how it works, etc. But the downside is that it still depends on complex code in the software it packages (like linux-libre, gcc, etc). With learning, there are also interesting approaches used for learning concepts used in digital technology (like the concepts used by git, etc)[3] which could potentially enable more people to be able to modify the way technology works, but it also requires time. And for hardware, we start to have ISAs like RISCV or PPC64LE that can at least be implemented with designs under free licenses. So it could potentially open the door for more simple hardware, but that hardware also needs to be fast and not too expensive or complex to produce, so it could also not work out because of that. So I'm really wondering where we could go with all that, could it all become step by step, incrementally more accessible when combining several of these things together (like better teaching + more simple software and hardware)? Or do we really need to re-do it from scratch to make technology accessible? Or change the way we live and interact with technology to make it fit people instead of having people be required to fit technology? Unfortunately I don't really have a deep enough vision on this topic to know which step to take in advance so I've mostly resorted to the incremental improvements, hoping to advance things in the right direction up to the point where it could work well enough or show us its limit and push us to find another path. References: ----------- [1]https://www.tic-ac.org/ [2]https://osmocom.org/news/120 [3]https://techlearningcollective.com/ Denis. --Sig_/gsxO60wV/csm=G=HcPLlJt/ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEeC+d2+Nrp/PU3kkGX138wUF34mMFAmCN7yQACgkQX138wUF3 4mOlYRAAl07NDZAQa2uIxYJ5HtoINVYaWCu6eCz+riXmn2nl2Imjwk7+PUnt6n6v qniGBiSq2k0Fn36/h/hLvOGAfgkb/hc6tJ3ZBF63F6f+U/L2+OrRqMEGqaAOqvim xELvMzsrrTJeJixN7p1YLoXh2Hu3DMmRMVrmp41wYbbRwkXY+qSU7VedXLryU3v4 nf0odyX6NthFWRxiLy3oG45TIICVWyM224leZte6viz+FIzktwtCVp+rGKXxOsso b+QzWXhW6hFu/bl84A2GwuQWgNLvMJJjyAQ0A3UNzY4BzZfCMHmPtNBUjt4luqrE 75rkRC0k6suBNY1F8QlrXcukjvHSES+8Z41XcyfvM6+STXOpeJ+05/cOydkGsPBs GJN1XBVIr7/50COkHEFudvqxaP00Jr5qZ86gwneDLzNOiV4a5eJllp6lQWfm/aDT lYdy1a5ngPshGs5xZy9iu4jfmXxnXCoR2DSFOYmRn7rXcbDj617QFeKaYBmz5qEh wi7C+Y7pAO3ciHHnjl5DfhfIz1j/eusuuMD1XiiWhm6KQZjIeGapH35gvHORxbSa QzU7u9yyhvPIRUW8SbONklzq/Dp5j9d9IXn8s9MilBP9rH9hxnRy5UvOpCPkN1xQ F7u51y9egLfEcuCNa4m/4CeJfxRzSSeM0vMstFKrnGG/r7TGmVY= =g/+d -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/gsxO60wV/csm=G=HcPLlJt/--