>>> Richard Stallman 7-Jan-08 17:14 >>> > > IMO, a big part of the problem here is that when you say "recommend" in > this context what you actually mean appears (based on the discussion > here) to be something that most people would express as "not > deliberately erect barriers against". > > The evidence of this discussion shows that's not a good description > for what I am saying. Many of the people on this list were told that > I want OpenBSD to "erect barriers against" installing non-free > programs. And their words show that they think this means designing > the system so that installing non-free programs is impossible. (I > have not suggested such a thing.) > > My usage of the "recommend" fits in normal usage. If you include > program FOO in a list of programs that could be installed, implicitly > that recommends installing FOO as an option for people to consider. > > Perhaps "implicitly recommend" would be a clearer description of this > particular case.
No, Richard, it would not. Recommend means (and I quote the Concise Oxford Dictionary): "advise course of action, treatment, person to do, that thing should be done". We do not recommend that someone install any particular ports. Think of the ports system as a set of recipes, of how to install other people's software. A particular person would not make everything from a recipe book: they may be allergic to nuts, or not like mushrooms, or have a gluten intollerance... if they do, the recipe book does not force them to make that meal, there is no reason why the existence of a wheat-based recipe would stop a celiac suffer from buying the book. Some of the programs that ports enables users to install are not free. Some are appallingly written. We make no claims about software for which ports exist (a frequently asked queston on this list is whether they are audited, the frequently- given answer is, of course, "no".) We do not recommend any ports. OpenBSD is a complete operating system, with enough components to suit many people with requiring ports. The ports system provides choice, and options for people. Nothing is recommended. To be clear: each port is a recipe that says "at least one person has found that [...] (set of instructions) will enable you to install this third-party software on OpenBSD". If ports were recommendations, why would there be so many editors, or so many web browsers? The ports system is about choice, not about recommendations (or otherwise) from OpenBSD developers. Maybe if there were 20 ports they would be recommendations, but there are over 4,500 ports. We do not make recommendations about any of these. In fact, our only claim w.r.t. ports is that the licences for the software allow us to distributes the ports (and packages, where made). And where licences have been unclear we have removed ports from the system. Please now stop this Thanks Tom
