There are enough updates to last year’s “In Search of Foundational FLOSS Freedom(s)” to make a blog category of its own, or almost so. But instead of keeping a year-old post on life support, I’d like to extend a few thoughts from this year on much the same topic.

The new conversation in town is the Digital Commons, a somewhat broader perspective than merely the FLOSS ecosystem. But insofar as FLOSS can be thought of as “a commons”, much of the conversation applies pretty much directly.

It turns out, however, that what people understand by “a commons” may differ wildly.

A Common Definition of Commons

If we look back at the history of the term, …

There’s a new interview up on Safety Detectives where I get to discuss the origins, motivation and direction of the Interpeer Project as a whole. It’s been a great conversation, and I think one of the better summaries of the project from the beginnings to where we are now.

I also get to make some predictions for the Internet that make me rather sad, but help illustrate why the project is taking the architectural approach that it does:

Now I’m writing this in a night where Kirk sweeps over France and heads into central Europe. Hurricane Milton is heading for Florida, mere weeks after Helene has wreaked havoc there. And more storms are forming.

I’m particularly sensitive of France …

Open letter initially published in French by the petites singularités association, translation by OW2 – with French original version below.

To sign it: please publish it on your web site (French, English or both), then add yourself in this table.

Open Letter to the European Commission

Since 2020, Next Generation Internet (NGI) programmes, part of European Commission’s Horizon programme, fund free software in Europe using a cascade funding mechanism (see for example NLNet’s calls). This year, according to the Horizon Europe working draft detailing funding programmes for 2025, we notice that Next Generation Internet is not mentioned any more as part of Cluster 4.

NGI …

A few days ago, a vulnerability in xz-utils named CVE-2024-3094 was discovered, and since then the open source community as well as security pundits fall over themselves and each other to provide the best analysis of this incident.

Don’t worry, this post isn’t another one of those.

Because while all the speculation about what motivates such a long-term attack is fun, the underlying issue is way, way simpler.

In a tweet, Heather Adkins of Google posted an “unpopular opinion: if your hobby is now responsible for running the modern world, it’s no longer a hobby”.

I felt inclined to be kind that day, and chose to interpret these words to mean that she feels a person …