In 2014, MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 were released under a Microsoft shared-source license (Microsoft Research License) which forbids redistribution
In 2018, both versions were published to GitHub and relicensed as MIT, making them properly open-source
Today, MS-DOS 4.00 was added to that repo, also under MIT.
A ground-up overhaul of the copyright system would make things so much worse, not better, considering the current climate of power. In the US for example, MPA, RIAA, Entertainment Software Association, Association of American Publishers, and others wouldn’t want public libraries or the used market to exist at all; they would push for making every single transfer of “ownership” on any media involve a payment to the rights holder. Lawmakers are far more likely to accommodate those groups’ desires than the public good.
The worst parts of the current copyright system are the most recent. Both the DMCA and the extension of US copyright term to 95 years took effect in 1998, and the early 2000s saw many other countries passing laws to make their copyright system closer to US’s in various ways such as the WIPO Copyright Treaty which took effect in 2002 and EU’s 2006 Copyright Directive. Just about the only positive news we’ve seen in US copyright law since then is in temporary exemptions to DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules (Section 1201) which change every year. Copyright law was far less hostile to consumers and the public before the 90s than it is now, and up until 1976 it used to be expected that most media someone consumes would enter public domain within their lifetime.
The digital era makes market relevance far more ephemeral than ever and yet the laws written for the digital era moved copyright in the opposite direction. Movie studios simultaneously judge whether a film succeeded almost exclusively based on its first week of ticket sales and also claim that depriving public domain for 95 years is necessary. Nothing should be able to justify more than 20 years of copyright. Media formats don’t even last as long as copyright; CDs and DVDs rot, game cartridges die, servers shut down, and even books printed on today’s low-quality paper will fall apart.
Some of it is absurd to me, like the way something can be online but geographically restricted.
This is a consequence of contract terms moreso than copyright. One issue in copyright law that this does connect to, though, is the fact that the question of whether the rightsholder keeps a work reasonably available on the market does not impact whether the work retains copyright protections. If copyright law did hypothetically include that limitation, providers would become far more likely to make sure that all content is available in all countries, but even then things could still vary in terms of which content is on which platform.
For years I’ve been using KeepassXC on desktop and Keepass2Android on mobile. Rather than sync the kdbx file between my devices, I have each device access it through the network. Either via sftp, smb, or nfs, but regardless I need to connect to my home’s VPN to access it when away from home since I don’t directly expose those things to the outside world.
I used to also keep a second copy of the website-tied passwords in Firefox Sync, but recently tried migrating that to Proton Pass because I thought the PIN feature might help, then ultimately decided to move away from that too and start using the KeepassXC-Browser plugin instead. I considered Bitwarden too but haven’t tried it out yet, was somewhat deterred by seeing people say its UI seems very outdated.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll give it a try sometime.
Stylus/handwriting oriented note taking. Stuff like Samsung Notes or Goodnotes (or OneNote, though it does a lot more) in the Android space, or e-ink options like Remarkable’s stock software.
If I just want to use a keyboard for everything I have great FOSS options like Joplin and Standard Notes, but when I want to use a pen instead it feels like no other freedom-respecting option seem to even remotely approach the usability of just sticking with real ink and moleskine-like paper notebooks.
Even someone willing to pay an upfront fee for proprietary apps will struggle to find good options that allow syncing and reading (let alone editing) your notes on other devices/platforms without resorting to a monthly subscription.
The readme file, gitmodules file, and other links within that repo all still reference the now-dead gitlab links. The builds don’t seem to be present at all.
That will all probably be fixed soon enough but right now that mirror which seems to have just been pushed as-is isn’t entirely usable.
You joke, but it really exists: the company that acquired uTorrent 17 years ago now sells an ad-free version of their current torrent client as “BitTorrent Pro” for USD$20/year, or alternatively as part of a VPN service bundle for $70/year.
Needless to say, stick with FOSS clients like qBittorrent/Deluge/etc instead.
Nonfree media codecs like HEVC/h265 are affected by US software patents. Distributing them from US servers without paying license fees to MPEG LA can put the host at risk of lawsuit. VLC, deb-multimedia (Debian), and RPM Fusion (Fedora) all avoid that by hosting in France, but even with those sources enabled patent issues can break things like hardware acceleration. Free codecs like AV1/VP9/Opus avoid all these problems.
Microsoft is US-based and can’t avoid those per-install fees. They could cut the profit from every single Windows license but apparently chose not to.
Ethically, I agree with you. More than that, using a lockpick on a lock you bought shouldn’t make you a thief. Unfortunately, DMCA has abysmal anti-circumvention measures that make the legality of using a device you own in ways you should be able to become questionable under US law, in the digital equivalent of Master Lock suing you for picking a lock you bought from them.
instructing users how to extract the prod.keys from their own switch
Yuzu’s quick start guide links to the old download link for Lockpick RCM from the same repo that is still inaccessible ever since Nintendo’s DMCA takedown last year (source: arstechnica). They never updated the page to link to any mirrors of Lockpick RCM or any other options to extract the keys; the guide doesn’t even work right now. You can see in Yuzu site’s changelog on github that the only changes made to that page in the last year are to minimum/recommended hardware requirements.
It seems even more absurd to argue that instructions are somehow infringing when the allegedly infringing part of them has already been broken for almost a year. Even the standing for taking down Lockpick RCM in the first place seems questionable, and telling users to use it with a broken link seems several layers further detached from that.
If you’re assuming “as long as the hardware will function” in the first place: even digital copies, DLC, and updates installed on the system before the servers shutdown will continue working even without hacks. There’s no check-in requirement except for the subscription-locked things like SNES games.
However, the result of a nonrepairable hardware failure when you have no hacks nor official servers is rather bad no matter how your games are obtained: OFW does not allow you to transfer save data from one system to another without going through Nintendo servers and a vast majority of cartridge games are incomplete without updates or DLC.
I never liked to play DS games on 3DS because of the blurry screen: DS games run at a 256x192 resolution while the 3DS screens stretch that out to 320x240. Non integer factor scaling at such low resolutions is incredibly noticeable.
DSi (and XL) similarly can be softmodded with nothing but an SD card, though using a DS Lite instead with a flashcart can enable GBA-Slot features in certain DS games including Pokemon.
This is very uncommon in the US. Most major banks (I’m not aware of any exceptions) charge a fee for each outgoing wire transfer, usually $25-$30. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, and PNC for just a few examples I’m aware of, plus every credit union that has local branches in my area. Some of those banks even add a second fee at the recipient’s side for incoming wire transfer.
They often encourage customers to rely on third party services like Zelle instead for small transfers to friends and family. Many banks’ sites/apps can also handle transfers between two accounts that both belong to the same bank for free too.