> 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.
William is right. The OpenBSD ports tree is just a scaffold, and that scaffold is 100% free. It contains no non-free parts. It contains URL's to non-free software, and free Makefiles that knows how to build that non-free software. But the entire ports tree has no non-free software in it at all. Does that make it non-free? Are all operating systems non-free then, because they can be used to write free Makefiles which compile non-free software? Richard -- you spoke out of line. You are wrong.
