Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Free software is not trusted software

[Julian Daich]

El 21/1/19 a las 4:02, bill-auger escribió:
> On Sun, 20 Jan 2019 23:54:16 +0100 Julian wrote:
>> It will not be simpler and eventually more effective just to rank the
>> trustability of the software according to the ratio of reviewers/
>> maintainers?
> so, call me a negative nancy if you will, but i suggest that an
> optimistic estimation of that ratio would be on the order of one
> reviewer for each 10,000 to 100,000 software projects; 

So it will be worth to advice users. The ratio I mentioned was only an
example. There can be many ways to rank software trustability.

> 
> just for a grounding in reality here: there is probably more software
> published, to github 

Software can be defined as not trustable by default unless is reviewed.
Specially in these bug repositories. It will benefit the big project/
users( Cannonical, IBM, Intel, Google, GNU, etc.) these entities/ people
not only care about the quality of the software they include in their
proyects, but also in the potential problems caused by the interaction
with other programs.

>  everyone must be willing to accept the
> risks associated with their own actions, and learn how to avoid the
> activities which they consider to be dangerous; or else that person is
> not responsible enough to competently manage themselves with that
> particular level of freedom 

Free Software, in special under the GPL, is under the user's risk. No
warranties.

> 
> my
> advice to anyone holding these concerns, is to trust your distro, use a
> FSDG endorsed distro and do not use any software that your distro has
> not provided - additionally, and as importantly: engage yourself with
> your distro's developers, file bug reports, ask the experts about your
> security concerns and for advice on how you can learn to manage them,
> and so on - that is how bugs are found and fixed, and how privacy
> concerns are identified and warned about or patched out; and that dialog
> between users and devs seems to have been working quite well these many
> years - 

There is aonther point. Many Free Software users often confuse libre
with gratis. Having Free Software does not mean that less skilled userd
can ask the more skilled ones to add features or fix bugs for free.

I mentioned the ranking solution because it is worth for me and also for
other big and skilled parties.

What we can do is starting to raise the alert.

Best,

Julian


-- 
Julian Daich

julian.daich@freecomputerlabs.org

FCL
www.freecomputerlabs.org