Thoughts about tech, politics, and more

Switching my code from gitweb to Gogs

Since end of 2014 I published some of my Free Software code – mostly Bash, R and HTML/PHP – on a self-hosted gitweb instance. I did this because I wanted to share the work I’ve done with other people because I’ve learnt a lot by reading other people’s code. Although I’m just a „hobby programmer“, I hoped at least some people can benefit from it.

The last few days, I switched from gitweb, a very simple web interface for my git repositories, to Gogs, a feature-rich webservice which still is lightweight, and quite simple to install and maintain – and of course Free Software! By doing so, people can now register with my Gogs instance, open issue tickets, fork my projects and send pull requests – very similar to non/semi-free services like GitHub or GitLab.

I love Free Software (Apps)

Do you know being in a restaurant and getting a menu which is longer than the average novel, and you cannot decide for a single meal because every single one sounds more delicious than the other? That’s similar to the problem I was having when writing this blog post…

Today is the „I love Free Software“ day, on which people all over the world say „thank you“ to contributors of Free Software, often created in free time and with lots of passion. This is software you can use for any purpose, which source code you or others can analyse, which can be modified and distributed – any program respecting these essential freedoms benefits a fair society, and our most personal privacy and security in return.

German Government wants authorities to advertise PDFreaders

Should authorities be allowed to make advertisement for only one company and ignore all the others? Many people strongly disagree, among them myself, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and also the CIO of the Federal Republic of Germany, the IT commissioner of the German Government.

The whole story began with something we all had to read sometimes, at least subconsciously, on a website providing PDF documents: „To open the PDF files please download Adobe Acrobat Reader.“. Such notices are unnecessary advertisement for a proprietary (non-free) product — there are dozens of software applications which can do the same or even more, many of them Free Software. Because of that the FSFE started a campaign called „PDFreaders“ to make this deficiency public, and contact administrations and companies with thousands of letters and emails.

Weiterer Teilerfolg beim Routerzwang

Die Free Software Foundation Europe und alle Freunde Freier Software, Verbraucherrechte und freien Wettbewerbs können sich seit einigen Tagen über einen weiteren Erfolg beim Thema Routerzwang freuen. Nachdem das Bundeswirtschaftsministerium (BMWi) das Thema Routerzwang in die eigenen Hände genommen hatte und einen Gesetzentwurf (TK-Endgerätegesetz) verfasst hat, der größtenteils unseren Vorstellungen entspricht, wurde dieser Entwurf der EU-Kommission und den Mitgliedsstaaten für Kommentare und Änderungswünsche vorgelegt. Dabei wurde nach Ablauf der sogenannten Stillhaltefrist ausschließlich eine formelle Unklarheit bemängelt und der Gesetzestext im Inhalt gebilligt.

splitDL – Downloading huge files from slow and unstable internet connections

Imagine you want install GNU/Linux but your bandwidth won’t let you…

tl;dr: I wrote a rather small Bash script which splits huge files into several smaller ones and downloads them. To ensure the integrity, every small files is being checked for its hashsum and file size.

That’s the problem I was facing in the past days. In the school I’m working at (Moshi Institute of Technology, MIT) I set up a GNU/Linux server to provide services like file sharing, website design (on local servers to avoid the slow internet) and central backups. The ongoing plan is the setup of 5-10 (and later more) new computers with a GNU/Linux OS in contrast to the ancient and non-free WindowsXP installations – project „Linux Classroom“ is officially born.

Nächster Halt: Endstation.

Man könnte meinen, hier in Tansania ist man weit weg von den politischen Vorgängen in Deutschland. Doch interessanterweise wird es einem hier dieser Tage sehr einfach gemacht, den GDL-Streik, der vor allem vor Pfingsten in Deutschland die Bevölkerung elektrisiert, aus einer anderen Perspektive zu sehen. Wo selbst politik-kritische Formate wie die Satire-Komik-Sendung Heute Show durchgehend auf dem Gewerkschaftsführer Weselsky rumhackt, kann man durch den Vergleich mit Ländern wie Tansania, in denen das ganze Politikschauspiel noch etwas durchsichtiger und simpler gehalten ist, sehr gut verstehen, warum der GDL-Streik im Endeffekt ein notwendiges Übel für nahezu alle Bürger in Deutschland ist.

Technology and Free Software in Tanzania

After two months in Tanzania and in the computer education centre I work every day I learnt a lot about the culture of the locals in terms of their viewpoint on information technology. And in the same way I had to accept that my initial mental image of the people’s behaviour was (at least in parts) very wrong. So in this article I try to explain how I see the situation of modern technologies and the usage and understanding of Free Software in the region of Tanzania where I live.

Erste Eindrücke aus Tansania

Pole pole – das ist die typisch tansanische Mentalität, alles etwas ruhiger und langsamer angehen zu lassen. Und wahrscheinlich ist das auch der Grund, warum ich erst einen Monat nach meiner Ankunft in Tansania dazu komme, einen ersten Blogeintrag über meine bisherigen Erfahrungen zu schreiben. Ich bin hier von Anfang März bis Ende Juli als Freiwilliger in einer Organisation tätig, die die Bildung von jungen Menschen und der ländlichen Bevölkerung durch Einsatz und Schulung von IT verbessern will. Im Folgenden möchte ich kurz einen Rundumblick über mein Leben hier und die Bedingungen geben, konkret über meinen Alltag, die Gefahren, meine Arbeit als Freiwilliger, die einheimische Bevölkerung und Kultur, Wetter und Natur sowie das liebe Geld:

In The End Freedom Is What Matters

Yesterday I’ve been asked by a good friend of mine why I am investing so much time in the FSFE (Free Software¹ Foundation Europe) instead of putting more energy in other organisations with more focus on privacy issues. The background of his question is that I’m quite concerned about governmental and commercial surveillance and the lack of really private ways to communicate with each other and the impact this has on our online and offline behaviour. With Laura Poitras‘ recent movie „Citizenfour“ awarded with an Oscar, I use the media attention as an icebreaker to talk with my friends about these topics if the situation allows it.

I love Taskwarrior, therefore I love Free Software

“It’s Valentine’s day and you’re writing a blog post? Are you nuts?” you might ask. Well, but it’s not only Valentine’s day but also I love Free Software day. This day is proclaimed every year on February 14 by the Free Software Foundation Europe to thank all developers and contributors of Free Software (software you can use for any purpose, which source code you or others can analyze, which can be modified and distributed).