Follow-up Comment #14, task #15731 (project administration): Hi Davis, Ineiev,
I'm hoping we can deescalate the atmosphere here a bit. The situation may be nuanced, but I think it helps to remember that we are all on the same "side" here, trying to advance user freedom. [comment #11 comment #11:] > Hi Bandali, > > Nice to meet you again--I believe we co-moderated the IRC channels at > LibrePlanet. > Nice re-meeting you too! I was trying to remember where I'd seen your username. :-) > > Yes, Debian runs with only the free repositories. But, I can see you > guys really want a 'certified free' distro. Although I object to such > a thing because certifications are not what makes software free, and > it isn't specified in the hosting rules, I will do the needful and get > one of those running on the tablet so that it cannot be a point of > contention. > Great! To my understanding, Debian without its `non-free` repo enabled is a fully free operating system and there is no concern w.r.t. RCU. To be clear, I was *not* suggesting that you *must* be able to run a currently endorsed distro on the tablet for your RCU submission to be valid. I asked that to nudge us towards addressing Ineiev's questions or concerns, and help move this ticket forward. > > Ineiev: once I do that, what other objections will you have with my > project? > > Thanks, > Davis Ineiev, [comment #12 comment #12:] > I think one more question is relevant: does any noticeable number of > people use that free distro on that tablet? Do you always or nearly > always use it on your tablets yourself? > > If not, we may suggest that your work with that free distro on the > tablet is more of academical than practical value, and this package > would essentially support proprietary software. > I think these are good questions to consider, and food for thought, but they should not be a deciding factor on this registration application. For what it's worth, Davis has done (arguably more than) his fair share by demonstrating and documenting how to run a free operating system on the tablet (if the original one is nonfree) on his site at <http://www.davisr.me/projects/remarkable-microsd/>, so now anyone seeking freedom on the tablet may have it. I believe it is precisely through supporting the development of projects like RCU that one can help grow the userbase of free software users on such a device. RCU itself not only runs on a free operating system, but also talks to a device that can run a free operating system. We should work to encourage its development and potentially the development of other similar packages so that people can do more and more in freedom. In other words, it seems to me that the necessary foundation is there, and now we all have to help build a good structure on top of it. > > By the way, I don't think it matters very much whether the users > install proprietary software themselves or someone else pre-installs > it for them: what's wrong is that people use proprietary software. People using proprietary software *is* bad, but certainly not RCU's fault. RCU itself is free, runs on a free operating system, and talks to free software on another device, and does not put free software users of the tablet at a disadvantage. In other words, it satisfies the "No dependencies on nonfree software" as outlined on the Savannah hosting requirements. Cheers, bandali _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.nongnu.org/task/?15731> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.nongnu.org/
