account page (profile?)

i guess theres no edit feature. i have loaded my profile page without a login, it isnt "public" at least for people who are not logged in.

it is not clear who it is shown to when logged in, whether it is admins only or any person on the forum, though this solves at least part of it.

> so i understand if the admins want my first and last name

Providing your real name is optional. See here: https://trisquel.info/en/privacy

"Optional personal data such as a first and second name and a postal address, stored only so we'll able to send you your physical membership perk if you choose to register as an Associated Member"

> i find it an unacceptable policy to put it on the profile page by default

Your name is not visible to anyone but you. If you log out and look at your profile page you'll see that the name isn't there.

um, first of all-- thank you, that solves my problem and i will gladly cede any "debate" about this matter to your point. thats good enough for me.

i was familiar with the guidelines already, and admittedly, a self-proclaimed privacy advocate should have read the privacy policy too, eh? (hmm.) i admit sloppiness there-- when someone calls it "gnu/linux" i assume good intentions or at least good enough to save the privacy policy for later.

i will point out that they are required fields in the signup form, even if theyre not required in the privacy policy. i dont wish to nitpick, and ive already ceded this one-- i didnt want to leave this point out though.

as a matter of fact, you were the main person i wanted to contact on this forum, but not the only one, due to a particular discussion here. so hello. i dont know why you would want to email me at this stage, but if at some point you do, feel free to use the contact page on this forum to email me. id love to hear from you.

i contacted ruben earlier in the year to ask how much of trisquels production is automated, and i was happy with the reply. since im no longer a trisquel user (not for some time) i dont get the firmest impression that im welcome here. i am a free software advocate, and a free software author, and either banning me or asking me not to post (whichevers easier) will make it undeniably clear whether i should be participating in any discussions here or not. all the best.

I don't see why you wouldn't be welcome here. There are other forum members who don't use Trisquel but are interested in discussing software freedom[2] in general.

thats nice to hear. ive had a pretty sincere (almost stallman-like) obsession with both freedom and computers since a very young age. when i was 10 i wanted to "invent" a shareable/modifiable particular nameless operating system (it has quite a few letters in common with trisquels mascot, and in the same order too! some parts require a non-free compiler) though some team has already done it.

today, gnu/linux is worlds better than that one, plus it has a fancier command line. i think i was still in my teens when i tried a gnu/linux distro on an 2.88-formatted floppy (the only floppy i ever had formatted to that capacity.) because i didnt even know how to copy the thing, it felt a bit useless. a few years later, i was using the distro that trisquel was based on, and i had tried trisquel itself by 2007 maybe? lets say between 2007 and 2009.

trisquel was the first fully-free distro to convince me such a concept was viable. i was shaking both my arms, kermit-like and saying "why does stallman want this! we have enough hardware compatibility issues [in 2008ish] already!" after it miraculously booted on my random used laptop, i thought id try a wireless usb dongle that hadnt worked with any of the other distros i liked. the little light came on and it connected, and i thought "oh, sugar is magical." (trisquel with sugar. the partly-non-free sugar didnt recognise it.)

before sugar and trisquel, my favourite programming language (for more than a decade) was basic. sugar (and the allen downey book) taught me python, ending a years-long quest to finding a good basic substitute that worked on everything.

i (almost seriously) advocate that everyone make their own gnu/linux distro and their own programming language. but obviously, without some really significant help (and some fairly lax requirements, none of which have to violate the fsf requirements for a fully-free distro.)

any qualms i have with the fsf about software are extremely minor. i started boycotting amazon the same day i read about their new e-reader. ("the right to read" wasnt supposed to be an instruction manual!) i still think free culture needs work, but im a big believer in that as well.

whats missing from free software advocacy? everyone needs to learn how to code. not for the reasons that anybody says. above all: not in a way that lets silicon valley have a cheaper, less skilled workforce. thats the main drive behind all this "learn to code" business. right idea-- wrong reasons.

if i were a great coder though, i would automate the rest of your distro for you. gnewsense as well. i was a futurist before i learned my second computer language-- and i do think automation is going to change "the distro" forever and in wonderful ways... "real soon now," of course. considering the number of things we have now that i predicted as a kid, i feel good about this one. thanks for the welcome.