It's hard for me to take a strong stance against distributions which include
some non-free software when the majority are having a difficult time getting
off of completely non-free platforms. Debian definitely needs to work toward
the FSF's guidelines. However my feeling is we need to work more toward
eliminating non-free software for things that are easy for the majority of
users to move away from today (like drivers). It's a simple thing near
everybody can do if they are even remotely motivated. Compare this to trying
to tell someone they can't 'Skype' with there dying grandmother.
Both are bad in my mind although getting people off Skype is less pressing of
an issue compared to getting them off of all the other non-free software they
are already using.
One of the arguments I like for which RMS has made on this topic is that
moving people away from non-free platforms to ones which are mostly, but not
completely free, is that it encourages non-free development on an otherwise
free platform. That then makes it that much harder for us to stand up and say
non-free software is wrong.
I don't think things like Steam coming to GNU/Linux is a good thing. I do
think trying to help people off of non-free platform is a great thing. Now
where you draw the line is a much more challenging question.
