On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 02:00:14PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > OpenBSD is by far the most free OS in the landscape. Everything that > ships with it is free or else it won't be distributed with it. > > Yes, that's what I was told. I was also told that OpenBSD's ports > system includes non-free programs. Is that accurate too?
Strictly speaking, no. If you unpack ports.tar.gz you will find a bunch of makefiles, packing lists, & c., all of which are free. OpenBSD's ports system depends on programs in the base system which are free. On a modern UNIX-like operating system it possible, even easy, to use free tools like awk, make, perl, sh, and so on, directly or indirectly, to facilitate the installation and maintenance of (free and non-free) software. Your asking the question indicates that you might have done better to exclude OpenBSD from the scope of your remarks. When one does not know, the most appropriate statement is 'I don't know.' Loosely speaking, you can get away with saying pretty much anything that suits you at the time. Loosely speaking is the problem.
