Oh man you missed the pinacle of Nokias phones. The possibilities of the N900 where endless back then. Emulators, IR Blaster, High Quality Camera (for back then), all the Linux software, free Wifi everywhere (Because everybody still used WEP and the N900 would crack the password in like 20 seconds) and so much more. The transreflective screen 800x480 worked incredibly well. Low power and still very good visibility, only in bright sunlight the colors were washed out. I always wondered why they never used this technology in modern devices.

Then the N9 which lacked some features, but was so handsome and user friendly. It had an OLED but also the Clear Black technology which prevented the screen from reflecting to much sunlight, making it readable in the sun even though it had much lower brightness than todays OLEDs.

Sadly all this was killed by Elop who came from Microsoft and tried to push Windows phone, slowly downgrading the amazing hardware till Nokias phone branch was dead.

Or the N900 which even had fluid animations and scrolling which this company still seems to struggle with

Kubuntu 8.04.

It was the last release with KDE 3 and very polished for its time. Many applications from back then have vanished by now. Kopete was Magic, supporting all IM protocols (Including Yahoo video calls!), Amarok was so reliable and sleek.

Of course most things have improved since then, but I remember it fondly.

With the German Pirate Party loosing its seat a strong voice against surveilance is lost.

They also supplied NGOs with information directly from the legislative process, allowing them to act faster (and sometimes you have to be very fast to comment on minor changes with great effect) I hope somebody else at least partly takes on this role.

Well there is the Stop Killing Games initiative started by Ross Scott and supported by the Pirate Parties. If they succeed, companies selling games in recent years will be required to either keep supporting their game or to make it available in a way so that others can ensure its continued support.

When this is achieved the step to free older games is small.

If you live in Europe you have the chance to support the movement by vote in the upcoming elections.

Soon there are European elections. Voting for the Pirate parties and getting other people to vote for them is a good way to stop this. They are fighting hard against this law. Especially Patrick Patrick Breyer of the German one. Anja Hirschel, who will follow him, will likely continue with the same vigor.

Donations are also a great way to support. Donate to the Pirates, EDRI, or local groups opposing this.

I use it on a Pixel 5 and even there it is fluid while browsing. Only on Youtube there is the slightest stutter for HD Videos. Heavy sites like Discourse fora or Cryptpad or such work flawlessly.

Maybe Kolibri OS?

Its an amazing project, booting from a single floppy disk into a full graphical OS with multiple tools. And that on PCs with almost no RAM.

I sometimes use it to backup ancient PCs.

Example from Networking Hardware:

Cisco has had multiple cases where they likely built exploits for Government spyware into their devices. And they have far to many vulnerabilities which are found. This leaves two options: Either their security is so bad that intelligence always has backdoors ready and governments shouldn't use them, or at least some are backdoors built in accordance to NSA demands and goverments shouldn't use them. https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/nsa-hack-exploit.html?m=1

On the other hand Huawei, far less security issues, even offered to open their code for checking of backdoors and to let goverments check all updates. They are shunned by western governments and partially even banned.

And where do maintainers for the new parts of systemd come from? The larger systemd grows the more parts of it will be neglected. Also in regard to people checking commits, opening up doors for exploits like the one in xz.

This is handled in the modem Firmware. Linux just has to supply "User has dialed number x, go into emergency mode" and then route the audio.

This is solved for all Linux phones as far as I know. From Openmoko over N900 till Librem 5.

In honesty I didn't hear all his statements back then. Now from a quick search I can only find his Twitter:

„Natürlich kann es so gewesen sein, wie es @derspiegel annimmt. Es kann aber auch anders gewesen sein. Ich habe als Rechtsanwalt häufig erlebt, dass alles gegen A sprach, es war dann aber doch B.“

Which just says there should be more investigation before accusations are made. Asking for evidence. If you have a link to an interview or talk where he does as you said I would be interested to hear how he phrased it.

I want to point out one thing I have seen far to often in recent times: If a person or group of the left make a wrong statement others which previously followed them are quick to change their view and declare them as persona non grata. On the other hand we have the far right which spills out lies after lies and their followers are so used to it that even disproving them in multiple points does not touch their loyality in any way. I think we should focus more on welcoming people who try to do good thing. If they make a wrong step we should not shun them but try to show them why they did wrong. At least hey try to better themselves and you/we have a good chance to convince them of the better way.

See for example Snowden. He made the mistake to believe Russia would never invade Ukraine. An easy mistake if you have to live inside Russia propaganda machine. Upon realizing his error he was so struck by it, because he uses his social media reach to better the world and now trough a mistake he abused it for spreading propaganda, that he apologized and stopped tweeting for many months.