On Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 02:54:31PM +0200, Sagar Acharya wrote:
> I recently wrote this article
>
> https://designman.org/sagaracharya/blog/trusting_no_one
>
> being absolutely unaware about suckless and this was brought to my attention.
>
> Suckless's philosophy is hands down amazing and crucial wrt computer security. Although I'd like to point out 1 aspect. Why does suckless target very sophisticated users? If it shuns trying to go after elitist users, it can improve computer security of people all around the world and also themselves, since if others are secure, you yourself will become even more secure!
>
> For it, there would be few requirements. Free software, minimal, easy to use, beautiful to look at (by default). I guess the latter 2 are lagging a bit.
>
> Thanking you
> --
> Sagar Acharya
> https://designman.org
>
> P.S. Shifted completely to dwm this week. Can't even think of anything theoretically better than this!
>
Where do we stop, though? For me, sh (even with all its braindamage) is exactly
what suckless for the masses is, allowing for almost Lego-like ease of building
software as you want it. Actually, it is only the concept of pipes and line
oriented programs that provide that.
Security isn't the main point of suckless, it's only a consequence of clean and
simple code.
The main point is to empower people, but not through the spoon-feeding and
shoestring-tying the FSF likes so much, but by helping those who help
themselves.
That's how you get actual "computer freedom", by being able to program and
fullfill more and more of your needs/wants. suckless programs are made to
fit this mindset: simple enough to be modified and built around the UNIX
philosophy of use with other simple programs.
The people who want that simplicity but with more power (very hard thing to
create, actually), turn to Scheme or Tcl.
Received on Fri Apr 09 2021 - 17:42:51 CEST