[Freedombox-discuss] What is Freedombox?

Jonas Smedegaard dr at jones.dk
Tue Sep 17 17:49:47 UTC 2013


Quoting Petter Reinholdtsen (2013-09-17 16:42:41)
> [Jonas Smedegaard]
> > I would love to answer your question but don't understand it.  Seems 
> > you quote different parts than what you actually ask me questions 
> > about.  If so, please include adequate context in your quote.
> 
> Probably just a misunderstanding on my part.  I got the impression 
> that you had identified some parts of the Freedombox that were 
> "exclusive" for the Freedombox, and that the existence of these parts 
> worried you. I thus hoped you could let me know which parts this was, 
> to let me have a look at them too.

Ah, makes sense now.

I do feel that some pieces are currently being pushed for FreedomBox 
only, even if they do seem to me as being usable broader. If it isn't 
obvious which ones those are, then I'd be happy to try enumerate them.

That said, in this thread I was talking another somewhat opposite issue, 
where I see "constraint" as a positive quality: Some pieces considered 
for FreedomBox (disregarding whether targeted wider or not) may have 
some limiting design choices related to being runtime arch-independent.

One Laptop Per Child has such design choice, for educational reason: any 
kid should be able to just "look under the hood" and see how some code 
is expressed - without having to chase sources somewhere else.

CDBS has such design choice, for practical reason: Packaging a Debian 
package is centered around composing debian/rules which is a makefile so 
makes sense for reusable patterns to be make code too, not abstract away 
from that (as dh sequencer does).

I believe Freedom-maker has such design choice -that it is written in 
shell so as to stay close to its purpose of "just a sequence of stuff 
that could in principle be executed on a command-line.  When Bdale 
started that script in 2011 he emphasized not wanting to approach it too 
complex.  It has arguably grown more complex since, but my competing 
"boxer" tool is, in comparison, far over-engineered and is not yet in a 
useable state :-P

Specifically I reflected on Plinth perhaps in its choice of Python had a 
conscious design decision of being easier able to verify its logic e.g. 
when being super cautious about security.


> But I now suspect you only talked about plinth, and not what I 
> understood at all.  Never mind, just forget about it. :)

Ok.  Didn't do well at that, it seems :-)


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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