Francesco P Lovergine :debian: :guix:

Debian Developer, GIS geek, FLOSS activist. Researcher and data scientist.

I'm universally known as Frankie, a long-time Debian Developer and FLOSS activist. I found my way into the free/open-source world in the mid-90s, thanks to my job as a researcher and the experiences after my degree in Computer Science. Currently, I'm mainly interested in geospatial technologies and methodologies in Earth Observation.

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nprofile1qqsr3tf6ulhu8kq658x2y0hzhk5hdvlv0rh850lwyttu27lel6n5d5cpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qz9thwden5te0wfjkccte9ekk7um5wgh8qatzyz4ur0

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Last Notes

2026-04-09 19:04:25 GMT

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@nprofile…vf35 @nprofile…65q8
Sympathy for the lawyer???
https://youtu.be/Jwtyn-L-2gQ?is=9EAJm4p9M9qsk2D-
Of course, joking 😃

2026-04-02 08:47:43 GMT

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@nprofile…lyxv
Solo io vedo una sospetta somiglianza con John Belushi? 😀
https://cdn.masto.host/floss/media_attachments/files/116/334/239/277/109/227/original/1fdf283e8ccf0721.png

2026-04-02 07:45:07 GMT

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@nprofile…vf35 Garda Lake?

2026-03-25 08:54:14 GMT

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@nprofile…vf35 Just an example: I still have a home connection using shitty FTTC technology in my town. And I am lucky because in my cabinet, they have finished the available slots. If anyone in my building had the idea of connecting with a new line, they would discover that the availability is only theoretical.

2026-03-25 08:49:07 GMT

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@nprofile…vf35 Ah, FFTH mirage is yet another daydream for many. That is also true for FTTC. The reason is simply that the existing infrastructure is NOT adequate for modern times. But the ex-incumbent telco operator needs, as always, protection due to public lobbying. That was true in the 90s, and it remains true thirty years later.

2026-03-05 17:52:47 GMT

*Be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change everyone else."
Well, I have to share this thought. Maybe it is a daydream but someone has to follow that path, else nothing will change for sure.
That's the reason for my indie tech choices in years, because the tech savvy has to do that.
#nevent1q…nyy4

2026-02-10 09:03:27 GMT

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@nprofile…44dh
Did you check this one too?
https://simplex.chat/

2026-02-10 06:00:41 GMT

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@nprofile…44dh Missing https://delta.chat

2026-02-09 13:54:37 GMT

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@nprofile…h69c Scusate l'inglesismo, ma i social (e meno social, vedi Whatsapp) soffrono tutti indistintamente del first-mover advantage che si concretizza in un network effect. Una volta che ci siano milioni/miliardi di utenti in un network nato prima degli altri è difficilissimo - se non si sparano nei piedi da soli - che la situazione cambi. Il movimento è favorito solo da un effetto generazionale. Guarda caso, Meta ha dovuto comprare IG per evitare di essere spodestata con FB dal trono dei social.

2025-10-21 13:29:41 GMT

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@nprofile…h0ug It is not a matter of AWS; any service that is not multi-homed correctly and multi-vendor for the networks and servers is exposed to such failures.
The problem is that the costs of such resiliency in architecture can be too high for some parties. If you do not distribute your zone via multiple DNS servers around the net, that's the first reason for downtime sooner or later. The same for all core microservices and any other core services, including distributed storage and so on.

2025-10-15 05:30:13 GMT

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@nprofile…fggz Microsoft has once again demonstrated this questionable capability to transform the switch off into a mess, with some users being extended for one year, others reaching a dead end without explanation, and still others being extended for 3 years. At work, we had a pair of desktops and one laptop switched to Debian, but prospectively, I see that die-hard Windows users will still buy new boxes with Windows 11. Good, but not too good. Last time Linux desktops remained scarcely used.

2025-08-11 18:43:01 GMT

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@nprofile…u5tl
Condivido la preoccupazione di @nprofile…wkrn sui personaggi. Facile preconizzare che di questo passo il modello freemium di diffusione di contenuti finirà rapidamente nel dimenticatoio, innanzitutto quello scritto, ma a seguire anche quello audio e video. Personalmente mi aspetto nuovi modelli di licenza e sistemi rigorosamente a paywall che escludono l'AI dai giochi.
Questo a valere pure su quanto di buono si è creato negli ultimi 20 anni, a cominciare da Wikipedia. Un vero peccato.

2025-05-18 08:56:37 GMT

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@nprofile…wkrn
A parte la questione di affidarsi alle ricerche di Google, come a Wikipedia o a ChatGpt che rappresentano tutte soluzioni al pari di andare dal mago Otelma adatte (e ampiamente gettonate) ad un certo tipo di persone, in effetti la questione vera è: il livello scandaloso dell'informazione italiota mainstream. Se quella economico-politica è pessima, la media di qualsiasi cosa abbia a che fare con scienza e tecnologia è roba da studenti di scuola media inferiore recuperata alle serali.

2025-05-13 09:13:07 GMT

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@nprofile…hs3x
Small associations and personal use: GnuCash is successful for annual by-cash reporting. It is a bit more complicated if you need reporting by fiscal year, i.e., by competence. However, you can definitely have a clear report of liabilities and assets which is due at the end of the period.
You can also prepare budgets and if you are a Guile (Scheme) hacker it is also highly customizable, including possibly very complicated accounting reportings.

2025-03-03 09:22:49 GMT

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@nprofile…cwcm Yes

2025-03-03 09:20:13 GMT

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@nprofile…02jg
Beh almeno citare i sistemi di containerizzazione su cui si basano ormai parecchi hub di pacchetti sarebbe stato utile, no? Flatpak & C sono una soluzione per qualsiasi distribuzione da tempo.

2025-03-03 09:16:11 GMT

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@nprofile…cwcm
The first one is the common pattern. Have a look to #R-related groups to see literally tons of scripts that are screenshotted. Very disappointing.

2025-02-26 08:38:53 GMT

It is misleading to suggest that evil parties can be controlled by imposing backdoors on common systems such as Telegram, Signal, or WhatsApp.
They are motivated enough to use other systems proficiently and work around them.
You, so-called democratic governments, are cultivating an illusion and allowing other evil entities to abuse that power. It happened in the past and will happen again in the future.
Stop it, idiots.
#control #government #abuse #backdoors #paragon
https://swedenherald.com/article/signals-ceo-then-were-leaving-sweden

2025-01-20 19:08:51 GMT

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@nprofile…args
Some times ago I wrote a blog post about that, the main reason why I switched off social nets and moved to distributed system.
Everyday is worse, but reading people like you and others gives hope to get the dream back.
https://lovergine.com/the-shattered-internet.html

2024-12-24 11:55:31 GMT

My considerations about #IPv6 and its role as a matter of users' #freedom.
https://lovergine.com/ipv6-is-a-matter-of-freedom-not-a-technical-issue.html
#indieWeb

2024-10-03 09:08:04 GMT

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@npub1t7d…pqpp
Interesting post; I'm primarily interested in how are your experiences with hardware supports for BSD flavors. This is my main worry when considering non-Linux solutions.

2024-08-27 09:38:06 GMT

Good news comes every now and then
#freebsd #SovereignTechFund
https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/sovereign-tech-fund-to-invest-e686400-in-freebsd-infrastructure-modernization/

2024-08-26 06:24:57 GMT

Reading #SICP 2nd ed. for fun. I wonder why in 1987 we as students at an Italian University had to learn #computer #programming with Pascal, instead. What had we done wrong?

2024-08-03 14:03:27 GMT

"#Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. #Scheme demonstrates that a very small number of rules for forming expressions, with no restrictions on how they are composed, suffice to form a practical and efficient programming language that is flexible enough to support most of the major programming paradigms in use today."
Something went wrong in #computing

2024-07-30 09:34:17 GMT

Published some personal notes and bold opinions about distributions and trends in computing.
http://lovergine.com/are-distributions-still-relevant.html

2024-05-08 05:48:37 GMT

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@npub1p45…89jz well, Debian Trixie/testing comes with 8.7.1, currently. But of course, stable has 7.74.0. maybe it depends on what is the distro target.

2024-01-26 08:15:18 GMT

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@npub1yge…gg7y @npub1qrr…rnnz It seems a segfault, would try a debugging session with core dumping. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingEvolution as a starting point.

2024-01-22 07:33:57 GMT

Maybe it's me, but I see in #Python the same first signs of hypertrophy of another well-known elephantine language such as C++... #decorators and other strange beasts 🥱

2024-01-09 15:27:59 GMT

My first #mua on *nix was #Elm on ~1993 (I think). In 1995 I moved to #Mutt and never changed. So I will turn 30 years of use next year. Wow!

2023-12-28 14:11:13 GMT

I'm old enough to have begun using #unix before #linux, and in the first years, I used *nix (well, SunOS, Solaris, and Digital OSF/1, to say more precisely) for so long. I'm what nowadays is considered a Veteran Unix Admin or #vua. I'm still curious enough to stay updated about current tech, but I wonder how many people out there in the #fediverse are still passionate about tech novelties but even cultivate legacy knowledge such as #C, #Perl, #Tcl, #autoconf and #automake, #m4 and above all why?

2023-10-12 09:47:34 GMT

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@npub1t7d…pqpp and snap or flatpack or appimage, not only docker and containers. Unfortunately, the long chain of dependencies nowadays encourages people to depend on language hubs, which do not always contain seriously maintained packages. Not better than using blob images such as docker, isn't it?

2023-08-14 13:17:07 GMT

After #Redhat and #Hashicorp changes in their #opensource policies, I'm now looking with suspect and reviewing all single-company #FOSS projects without a clear story of multiple contributions, without a foundation based governance and/or subject to copyright #hijacking for third parties contributions. (as the infamous MySQL one).
If you are strongly depending on such a project, it is time to sleep worried. We are living in very strange times.