On Dec 14, 2007 9:49 PM, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Could you tell me the name of that facility, or something else about > it? If it is specifically and only useful for blobs, perhaps it > should be remove from gNewSense. On the other hand, if it is a > general purpose feature and blobs are merely one thing it could be > used for, then I probably don't have anything against it. I don't > criticize general facilities merely because someone could use them > to do things with non-free software. >
For facilities, we can take the example of the prominence of binary-only linux kernel modules. You're ok with the fact that they can be more than easily installed by every dump people, you're ok by the fact that your recommended distro provides facilities for installing these types of blobs... but on the other side, just because OpenBSD, a full-featured, *completely free* operating system, is transparent enough to show its users what software (free or non free) they can install *separately*, you criticize the project and you not recommend it. But wait... your recommended gNewSense is just a bunch of scripts to repack ubuntu without proprietary stuff. You know ubuntu includes a lot of proprietary software and you know ubuntu is built around proprietary software (launchpad). So your points are : -- You recommend gNewSense which is free and meets your freedom goals. -- gNewSense is nothing without non-free software. -- OpenBSD, which is entirely built on free software isn't recommended because developers are honest enough to be transparent with users. Quite hypocritical, isn't it ? This is to me simply pathetic that you don't admit all the merits, qualities and efforts regarding freedom that OpenBSD developpers made. It's the only project that fights so hard against unfriendly vendors, try so hard to replace blobs with free replacements and don't hesitate to take radical actions to keep his original goal. We can also debate on the fact that some people of your own projects *run* proprietary software (like Microsoft Windows) when they port emacs or gcc on this target OS (I don't know how to port gcc on windows without running windows...). Again, quite hypocritical from a project claiming a lot of freedom values. The only reason I see for this hypocrisy is for justifying some progress to your "sponsors" regarding all these years where you were not able to "recommend" any system. It would be very hard to say to people than after more than 20 years of donations you are still not able to show any operating system which adhere to your principles... -- Mattieu Baptiste "/earth is 102% full ... please delete anyone you can."
