FOSS Meeting Dates: |
Agenda Topics: |
Unless otherwise noted, meetings run 3PM to about 5PM (following a 2:45-3PM help session) on the first Thursday of most months (second Thursday in January, July and September)
DURING THE PANDEMIC, WE'LL BE ON-LINE.
When it becomes logistically possible we hope to combine On-line participation, and to again meet in person at the Natick Community-Senior Center, 117 East Central Street (Rte.135), Natick MA
To get announcements, send "Please subscribe me to the NatickFOSS e-mail list." to: algot.runeman@verizon.net |
Future agendas are subject to change because, with FOSS, good news arrives on a daily basis. |
February 1, 2024 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. |
FOSS Meeting Agenda TBD
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January 11, 2024 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. |
Reminder that the January Meeting is the SECOND Thursday of the month.
FOSS Meeting Agenda TBD
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December 7, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.
VIEW us (live or
later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis
Payne).
Or, to actively
PARTICIPATE, use open-source
Firefox or
Chromium (rather than, say,
Chrome or
Edge or
Safari; no add-ons needed for
Jitsi Meet!)
- Join our
meeting https://meet.jit.si/natickfoss
- Opens at 2:45PM for FOSS Help. - Mute your
microphone except as needed. - You can download
and print this 5-page
Jitsi Meet Help Sheet
with Keyboard Shortcuts.
As fans of FOSS and an inclusive, open Web, we will try to find, and link to, sources with limited or no ads. That may not always be possible. When we do need to link to sources with many ads (especially animated ones) with an icon.

Some web links are paywalled! You need to subscribe/create an account. We will attempt to avoid those sources for our links, but in case there's just one we will try to warn you.
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Draft Agenda - some of this and maybe more!
FOSS Introductory Slide Talk: Newcomers: Welcome! For help, be online about 2:45PM (NY/Boston time).
- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- Hot Software:
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- Google forced to reveal user search history in Colorado court ruling
- Chrome not proceeding with Web Integrity API deemed by many to be DRM (9to5Google, November 2, 2023)
- As YouTube Declares War on Ad Blockers, Google Sponsors Ad Blocking Conference (404 Media, November 3, 2023)
- YouTube’s plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (Android Authority, November 3, 2023)
- YouTube’s ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws (The Verge, November 7, 2023)
- Internet voting remains a risky method of casting election ballots (The Hill, November 10, 2023)
- YouTube facing criminal ‘spying’ charges for ad blocker detection (Android Authority, November 13, 2023)
- VSStudio Designed to Fracture FOSS Development - Microsoft at the “embrace, extend, extinguish” game
- Large Language Models and General AI:
- AI Guide Mozilla’s general guide to what AI is
- FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne).
- How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller)
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
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November 2, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.
VIEW us (live or
later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis
Payne).
Some of the links to web pages of information on which there are intrusive amounts of advertising. While we will try to find sources with limited or no ads, that may not be possible. We are thinking of labeling such links with an icon.

Some web links are paywalled! You need to subscribe/create an account.  A Boston Globe link illustrates the issue this month. Please let us know what you think.
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- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- What is Debian? the very stable community GNU/Linux distribution (a blog post) (Algot)
- Hot Software:
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne).
- How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller)
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
What about using Ad Blockers?
- Is there a volunteer to take over maintenance of the Introductory Slide Show so we can move it onto the NatickFOSS.org site (and make it easier to use for people who don't have or know about LibreOffice Impress). As of now, the link leads to an Impress (odp) file at millermicro.com.
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October 5, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.
VIEW us (live or
later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis
Payne).
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- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- Hot Software:
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- FOSS Fun: Godot Funding; Game of the Month: Acid Flight (Dennis Payne).
- Recommended Reading:
- How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller)
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
- Should we have a page listing recommended software? – Consensus: Yes – Please email us your favorite regularly-used FOSS applications and reasons for your choice.
- Should we have a page listing board members’ background? – Referred to Board group for consideration
- New:
- We will attempt to avoid providing links to paywalled articles, and will attempt to note those sites heavily littered with advertising.
- Correction: Dick Miller’s mention of AI-generated “stickers” should have referred to Meta (Facebook, etc.), not Google as heard in the recording.
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September 14, 2023 (3-5PM*) VIEW us (live or
later) ONLINE at Youtube. Thanks to Dennis Payne.
(in spite of some network technical difficulties during the live meeting, you should be able to review this meeting's recording.)
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- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- Hot Software:
- Rhino Linux has released version 2023.2. Also watching BlendOS (by young author of Ubuntu-Unity) and 'Mantic Minotaur' Desktop (Ubuntu-Unity at Ubuntu) - and, for smartphones, Phosh. All these can be tested easily in RAM by booting from a Ventoy thumb drive. (Dick Miller)
- Widen too-thin scrollbars in gtk-based applications – a demo based on this and this solutions. (Bob Primak)
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- Large Language Models, etc.
- FOSS Fun:
- How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller)
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
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August 3, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
*- 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.
VIEW us (live or
later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis
Payne). |
- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- Hot Software:
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne).
- How to ID Junk mail:
- Spam “from FedEx” (Jill Miller)
- Check SPAM folders to ensure you are getting NatickFOSS emails.
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS & EXTRAS:
-
The Next Monthly BLU Meeting is Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 06:30 pm Online at Jitsi
The meeting will demo and discuss AlmaLinux OS, the community-supported alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (Jerry Feldman)
- Software Freedom Day is the third Saturday in September (the 16th), and it will be 20 years old this year. At how many Town Public Libraries might we staff a NatickFOSS demo table with at least two volunteers? Ask that, and solicit other ideas, on this August agenda?
- Corey Doctorow's blog Pluralistic contains the following "EULA":
READ CAREFULLY
By reading this website, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
Compare to the version Dick Miller has posted on the MMS Money is not Wealth page:
READ CAREFULLY:
By reading this website, you agree, on behalf of your employer and yourself, to release us from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that we have entered into with you, your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to our ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release us from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
(Dick Miller)
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July 13, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE.
VIEW us (live or
later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis
Payne).
The links shown in the topics to the right are discussed in the meeting's video and are valid links at the time of the meeting. Over time, websites may change or even disappear, and the older the links are, there is a chance they'll no longer work.
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- The FOSS News:
- FOSS History:
- Hot Software:
- Hot Hardware:
- Hot Internet:
- Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom:
- FOSS Fun:
- Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne).
- How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller)
- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
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Original Archive (March 2011 to June 2023)
Web page standards have changed through the years. The information in the earlier archive is still good, but the file has grown in ways that made it too difficult to bring it all up to more recent standards.
Please follow the link to get to the past meeting notes. Thanks for your understanding.
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