I laugh at it because it reinforces the notion of the Debian GNU/Linux distro
not containing proprietary software, which isn't true. It comes from strange
double-talk from the Debian Project in which they claim that the non-free
software in their repositories is somehow not "part" of Debian. That's just
double-talk designed for misdirection. All that the Debian Project did was
draw an administrative line around certain packages -- the existence and
inclusion of which would normally make the Debian GNU/Linux distro non-free
-- and say "See these packages? They're not 'part' of us." This is an attempt
at misdirection to avoid discussing the real problem: That the Debian Project
distributes proprietary software. Whether it's "part" of the distro is
totally irrelevant.
So, the Debian distro is only free if you accept that argument. If you do it
means that all GNU/Linux distros that exist are now free. Every single one is
now 100% free.
Why? Because all that any distro needs to do repeat what Debian did: All they
need to do is point to certain pakages and say the same thing - That the
packages aren't "part" of them, even though they host them, maintain them by
fixing bugs, and offering help and support to people in using the software
(all of this is true for Debian - see their constitution that non-free is
officially supported), and then put them into a separate repository.
And hey - Ubuntu has their non-free stuff in a different repository - see
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu
So they're most of the way there already. They just need to take that final
step and be totally free and endorsed by the FSF! Surely the FSF will fall
for such a sham arugment, right?
- Re: [Trisquel-users] How many people are working on Tris... jason
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