Rethinking TeX in STEM: Online Thu 29 Sep: 6.30pm BST (UK time): From the TeX Hour

[Christopher Dimech]

Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 8:51 AM
From: "Paulo Ney de Souza" <pauloney at gmail.com>
To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech at gmx.com>
Cc: "Jonathan Fine" <jfine2358 at gmail.com>, "TeXhax" <texhax at tug.org>, "tex-live" <tex-live at tug.org>, members at tug.org
Subject: Re: Rethinking TeX in STEM: Online Thu 29 Sep: 6.30pm BST (UK time): From the TeX Hour
 

On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 10:26 PM Christopher Dimech <dimech at gmx.com[mailto:dimech at gmx.com]> wrote:> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 5:53 AM
> From: "Jonathan Fine" <jfine2358 at gmail.com[mailto:jfine2358 at gmail.com]>
> To: members at tug.org[mailto:members at tug.org], "tex-live" <tex-live at tug.org[mailto:tex-live at tug.org]>, "TeXhax" <texhax at tug.org[mailto:texhax at tug.org]>
> Subject: Rethinking TeX in STEM: Online Thu 29 Sep: 6.30pm BST (UK time): From the TeX Hour

  
For something befitting the education of technically capable people, one thing is to reject Zoom.
Zoom is unjust, because it requires users to run nonfree  programs, mistreating and limiting users. 
Zoom lied to users for years about its software's encryption capability and security. It also
installed malware to override security features of some browsers.  
 
Besides sending personal data straight te Facebook, Zoom enforces Chinese censorship against
those who voice its murderous repression of protests.
 
Please rethink that !

Christopher Dimech
Administrator General (Gnu Project)
 

 
 
Do you have any suggestions for a substitute?
 
Open Source evangelist that believe there is only one god should show the way.
 
There are many quarters of the software space where there is no OS equivalent -- try 
pre-press, for example. There are no open source software that can determine the color 
spaces of a PDF file.
 
Paulo Ney
 

Paulo, I thank you for your question.  Remember that since 2013, Gnu runs the computing needs of
the International Space Station.  When one is in unfamiliar territory, you can only progress
consciously by seeking the assistance of a local guide.  For one thing, calling us "Open Source 
Evangelists" show that you have no idea about the people you are talking about.  Saying that we 
are Open Source Evangelists is like saying that "Cows Have Wings" or "If my mother had wheels she 
would be a motorcycle".  Completely wrong.

You know what happened to Columbus when he went by himself?  He wanted to go to India and 
ended up in America.  Do you know how many thousands of sailors did not even manage to land
anywhere?  If you go somewhere without any guidance, this is what will happen.  I am not saying
you cannot do it by yourself, but we do not know how many lifetimes it will take by yourself.
Not that it is impossible, but 99% of the people will just get lost and washed away. 

There are Jitsi, BigBlueButton and Jami.

Jami is a peer-to-peer serverless system, which I like.  But if you are at a terrible
venue, they might have a firewall blocking non-web ports, you have a problem.  Jami is
able to punch through NATs if you stress it.

Jitsi also works well.  The Jitsi server is a heavyweight.

BigBlueBotton also works, but one needs an account somewhere. And again, BigBlueBotton is
also resource intensive.

Christopher