[Trisquel-users] Re : How To Make Sure You Stay Libre

[lcerf]

'vrms' is not only misnamed (it would, for instance, consider GNU FDL  
documentation non-free!) but it is also useless on Trisquel. It only scans  
the packages available in the Debian repository. Not the packages installed  
by hand, the extensions, etc. Trisquel's repository is 100% free software  
(otherwise, it is a critical bug). There is nothing to check. The work has  
been done upstream. It even is the main advantage I see in using Trisquel: if  
you stick to what is in the repository (and in Abrowser's extension page),  
you can peacefully install anything. Your freedom is in good hands. If you  
want to install programs found elsewhere, then you need to do the work by  
yourself.

There is no sure way to automatically decide whether an arbitrary program is  
free software. Even if the license and the source code are given. The vanilla  
Linux kernel, under the GNU GPL, is a good example. Here are other difficult  
cases:  
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines