[Trisquel-users] Re : Question About .SO Files

[lcerf]

A .so file is an executable file.  It is not source code.  If its source code  
is not available, it is definitely nonfree.  If its source code is available,  
then it depends on the license it is distributed under.  Sticking with  
Trisquel's repository is safe: nonfree software in Trisquel's repository is a  
critical bug.  However, Trisquel does not ship all the free software there  
is.  In particular, if free software is not packaged for a given version of  
Ubuntu, it will almost always not be for the corresponding version of  
Trisquel.

All that said, I see little reason for a same program compiled for different  
processor architectures to be released under different licenses.  If Trisquel  
has an amd64 package, it should have the related i386 package, if it exists.   
The question is: why would you need the 32-bit version if your system is  
64-bit?  The answer is probably "because 32-bit nonfree software depends on  
it"...