Category Archives: English

Bye bye Skype, here comes XMPP!

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So far, we already had excellent reasons to refuse using Skype. Indeed, this protocol is closed, but most of all it doesn’t allow any interoperability, which is the height for a communication protocol! Imagine you could make phone calls only to people subscribed to the same telephone operator.

We already had an excellent protocol for instant messaging: an open standard, perfect to achieve interoperability. Its name is xmpp, the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. On top, a lot of services are already used by millions of people: Jabber, on which is based Google Talk (and soon Facebook Chat) among many others, but also other interesting things such as Juick.com, a social network completely based on the xmpp protocol.

But now, besides that, we also have a technical reason to say bye bye to Skype 🙂

Indeed, a lot of people were still making use of Skype because it was more convenient to have a video-conversation. It worked better and often between different operating systems. It was the only way for people using Gnu/Linux to have a video-conversation with people using Microsoft Windows: every other software was lacking stability and was often randomly working.

But a lot of effort have been put into improving this. And following the specification of Jingle, came the implementation of multimedia sessions. This implementation took time. But now, it’s getting to the end.

We can now have video-conversations using xmpp and it works just great! The main thing is that it is now possible with Microsoft Windows users! Using Empathy, you can now call people using the Gmail Web interface, see their face and hear their voice.

There aren’t any technical barriers left toward free video-conversation anymore!

Bye bye Skype, Welcome XMPP!

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Does Microsoft care about their customers’ security?

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A few days before the launching of Microsoft’s last operating system, FSFE wondered about users’ security since an important vulnerability has been silently ignored. I then asked myself the question, in what way Free Software is different regarding security?

It appears that our allegations were true and should have been taken seriously. As an article in Computerworld reports, Microsoft finally issued a security advisory about that high-risk vulnerability three days ago. The problem is still not fixed though.

What’s important there is that this vulnerability already triggered a warning (en) by the BSI agency more than a month ago! Despite the consequences, Microsoft meanwhile decided not to tell its customers in order to avoid bad publicity around the launching of Windows7.

Such despise towards their customers’ security has led me to ask: Does Microsoft care about their customers’ security less than they care about their good image? This experience proves the answer is yes. Microsoft has made the choice to keep their customers in ignorance and in the same time has put their systems at risk. This is yet another perfect illustration that proprietary software hijacks users: Microsoft is ready to sacrifice your security for their commercial purposes.

Free Software, Free Society: Of Democracy and Hacking

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When explaining why Free Software is important, one question that often comes up is: “do I really need the software freedom?”

The utility of software freedom is indeed not obvious for all. Not everyone can understand the source code of a program, and less modify it. It appears that the capacity to enjoy the four freedoms is only valuable to hackers and programmers. It’s hard to convince people to give up on proprietary software only for freedom’s sake, as long as they don’t understand the utility of that freedom.

It’s important to think of this issue not only as a singular commitment to freedom, but more as an issue of systems.

First, the fact that one cannot enjoy the freedom of something does not mean he does not enjoy its effects. The most obvious analogy here, are political systems. The Constitution is to sovereignty what a Free Software licence is to copyright. The Constitution that defines our political system gives to every citizen freedoms and rights, such as the right to run for an election.

Anyone can run for an election, but it does not mean that everyone will. Because not everyone has the capacity or the will to become a politician. This being said, would you say that Democracy does not matter because you do not want to be in politics? I guess most people would not say that.

It’s the same thing with Free Software. Anyone can use, share, study and improve the program. But the fact that you will not do that, does not mean that it’s not important to you. It’s important for the whole system. And the more important the system becomes, the more valuable is that freedom.

So unless you assume that software is not important, Software freedom is not important. But then, I suggest you shut down your computer and stop reading, take a flight and spend the rest of your days on a desert island.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the utility of software freedom. As more and more software is used in our society for important matters, more and more people should be able to understand the software. Otherwise complete control is given to others over yourself. Others will shape the system for you in order to get more control and more weight in the system.

That is why we need democratization of hacking. This will come naturally if Free Software is broadly used, because when one has the capacity to explore something, one will explore it, by curiosity at least. Just as Printing gave people the will to be able to read and then to write, computing will give people the will to be able to read and then to write. This is a long process of course. But this can be a far longer process if we use proprietary software: software you can’t read, nor modify, nor share.

Do we want a society of digital illiterates or a Free Society?

Is Free Software more securing?

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While Microsoft is going to launch in a flood of propaganda advertisement its new operating system – Windows 7, an important security hole seems to have been quietly ignored. Microsoft has to make itself a better image towards users, after the more than mixed success of Windows Vista, which still has difficulty to replace the old Windows XP. So it’s not difficult to understand that the monopolist takes more care of packaging than it takes care of security.

Free as in Freedom operating systems are not perfect, however I think we have the right to say Free Software is more securing. Here’s why. First, the source code is open, which allows any pertinent entity (be it a developer, an IT security agency, or a competing company…) to identify holes – and to fix them. Second, Free Software does not create monopolies, it participates on the contrary to a better repartition of tasks. i.e., there are several versions of Linux, several operating systems based on GNU and Linux, several vendors or communities and several shippers. And this collaborative development needs transparency. All these different actors ensure that every single level of development of the system is under control.

This is a major difference with development model typical for proprietary systems where the repartition of tasks is possible, but where there is no diffusion of responsibility or power. Every actor keeps the exclusive control over its software and thus over probable security holes. This results in really important issues, especially when one company holds a monopoly and abuses its position over such an important market as desktop software. Every single user of Microsoft products are strongly dependents on it. Resolving problems can only be done if Microsoft wants to. Unhappily, in such an overwhelming structure as Microsoft, if marketing is considered more important than security, it is the user who will pay.

So here are some incidents due to security issues with Microsoft softwares, that were mentioned since October 1.

It does not only concern operating systems and big infrastructure, but also basic software as web browser, which are used everyday by billions of people. Here again, Microsoft takes its time.

About the subject

I am not the first one to talk about this issue of course. If one wants deeper explanations, he should find details in this article: Why Free Software? Look at the numbers! or also, Computer viruses are caused by Proprietary Software.

Anyway, what’s important before security or technical issue, is trust and control.

It’s our duty to take care of our own security

Finally, I’ll say that Free Software is not more secured itself. But by giving the freedom to study the source code, to improve and to share modifications, Free Software gives its users the power to take care of their own security instead of giving it up to someone else.

It’s not a coincidence if Free operating systems have excellent tools to grant users privacy and intimacy, like GnuPG or OpenSSH.