Request: Completely free OS

[Exophase]

A free software tag in the PXML is the cleanest solution, but it requires all PNDs to be modified.


Just grepping the license field for strings like "GPL", "MIT", "BSD" etc. should work well enough.

You'd never get everyone to correctly adhere to FSF's criteria on this (which is the driving motivation, right?). For instance: ports of SNES9x are qualified by FSF as non-free because the license doesn't allow you to sell it.

 

[mcobit]

What about pnds that ship free software with unfree software like codecs or stuff or mediafiles under some cc license? There would need to be different versionsof those or would everything that has something in it that is not free software disqualify?


That would make grepping for gpl etc. Harder.

 

[diligentcircle]

Please help me understand the motivation behind this.. People should be able to see for themselves if something on the repo is free or not, or at least they'd be able to determine as well as software would be able to. I don't think a free distro needs to extend responsibility to disallowing the user from installing non-free stuff on their own. Is this just a matter of convenience, or is this too going to be an issue for FSF endorsement?

An option works fine if you understand the issue of software freedom. But many people don't understand the issues, so they can (and will) install nonfree software simply because they don't know better. So this is really about whether or not a system can be recommended.


Another factor is if I recommend a system, and it includes bad things, then my actual recommendation is not for the whole system, but rather just parts of it. This means that if I don't explain this, and possibly even if I do (depending on the number of exceptions to my recommendation), someone might misinterpret my recommendation as including things that I'm opposed to. For example, if I recommend Linux Mint, someone might infer from that that I recommend Adobe Flash and Oracle's Java, among other things. Being available in a repo is very close to being part of the system and many users might not notice the difference.

What about pnds that ship free software with unfree software like codecs or stuff or mediafiles under some cc license? There would need to be different versionsof those or would everything that has something in it that is not free software disqualify?


That would make grepping for gpl etc. Harder.

Yes, this makes things a lot harder. Non-functional data doesn't need to be free according to the GNU Project's guidelines, but they need to have a license which allows commercial or noncommercial, verbatim redistribution. So for example, The Ur-Quan Masters doesn't fit.


So properly, what should be done is either an extra tag, or a mirror of the Repo that removes all nonfree software.

 

[Exophase]

I don't like your idea of hiding software from people to protect them because you think they don't know any better. You can make it plain as day what your views are and link to FSF's documentation.. if they don't care or can't figure it out then your involvement should end there. FSF recommendations should be about providing hardware to people who have an interest in only keeping software that's GPL compatible. If they don't already understand or care about this then they shouldn't be a target for your recommendation.

 

[TrashyMG]

An option works fine if you understand the issue of software freedom. But many people don't understand the issues, so they can (and will) install nonfree software simply because they don't know better. So this is really about whether or not a system can be recommended.

I think most people understand the issues just fine.. It's just a matter that most people see non-free software as an acceptable thing.

 

[diligentcircle]

I don't like your idea of hiding software from people to protect them because you think they don't know any better. You can make it plain as day what your views are and link to FSF's documentation.. if they don't care or can't figure it out then your involvement should end there. FSF recommendations should be about providing hardware to people who have an interest in only keeping software that's GPL compatible. If they don't already understand or care about this then they shouldn't be a target for your recommendation.

I didn't make up the requirement. I can't find it now (I'll look again when I'm on a proper PC rather than the Pandora), but there is a page or FAQ entry or paragraph somewhere on gnu.org explaining why distros must not show or suggest nonfree programs, ever.

 

[Exophase]

Well then add that to my long list of what I don't like about FSF's attitude, I guess. Nonetheless, if third parties that you talk to don't understand the issues FSF preach then why should they care if hardware has FSF's specific endorsement? If you can't get people to consciously decide to support the cause over being coerced into it then you don't have a cause worth supporting, IMO.

 

[diligentcircle]

It's not coercion. Coercion would be locking down the hardware so only one OS can run on it. It's refusal to recommend or help with the installation of nonfree software.

 

[Exophase]

By your explanation it's hiding things you don't want people to use. Prevent them from making the choice you don't want by never giving them a choice in the first place. This would be treating users as incapable of making the distinctions for themselves. But by what you claim to be FSF's rationale, it's about not providing non-free software to people who know about it, understand it, and want it anyway. If that's how they feel then why should you get in their way? I don't think this is really about any pragmatic argument at all, it's about some conceptual purity of the system. Some people are simply offended by seeing non-free software in a download menu.


Refusing to recommend or help with the installation of non-free softwarw would be passive. This is requiring that recommendation and help that was already available be stripped from the system. As usual, FSF is perfectly happy to spread its cause by focusing on damaging availability of software they don't like instead of promoting the value of software they do.

 

[diligentcircle]

Not showing nonfree software in a program like PNDManager doesn't prevent you from going to repo.openpandora.org and downloading it, the same way that Trisquel not putting Oracle's Java in its repo doesn't prevent you from downloading it from Oracle's website.

 

[Exophase]

Then seriously, what's the point? Explain the real world, pragmatic value of this to me. PNDManager is not really the same as a distro repository, there's a more tangible interest in keeping non-free stuff out because of how dependencies can drag stuff in.

 

[diligentcircle]

The point is to prevent accidental installation of nonfree software, and to allow you to be able to fully trust the system.

 

[F_Slim]

Kind of like ordering something that seems to be vegetarian from the menu, only to find it has bacon in it I guess ... it's ok to ask for a special strictly vegetarian list of dishes to avoid that.


As long as nothing is enforced on the people who like the taste of bacon, and you can still eat a steak without having to confirm or justify you want to have a steak - why not?

 

[Exophase]

It's more like a vegetarian going to a restaurant and being asked to be given the menu that doesn't have cheeseburgers on it.

 

[dsleaf67]

Actually, its more going to a restaurant and checking the menu to find only vegetarian dishes.


It would be find by me as long as I don't have to go into the kitchen myself to get other dishes. If all I have to do is ask for a full menu, then I'd be all for it.

 

[urjaman]

Given the restaurant analogy we are going by... In most places I've been to, the menu has little indicators for stuff like lactose-free (or low lactose) for people with lactose-intolerance, etc. So in that vein I think (in general) that it would be a good idea to have the License field visible in any package browser we ship by default even in the normal SW, and for the fully free version we could maybe grep for the list of FSF approved licenses by name, and have a by-default-ticked box in a settings page for "only show free software" and a small warning when you un-tick it... That would work as long as people dont do evil things like "License: Not GPL" so a foss tag might be a good addition later. Also, you might need to add weird things like "SciTe License" ( http://www.scintilla.org/License.txt ) to the accepted list... (According to wikipedia that is a minimal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Permission_Notice_and_Disclaimer which is FSF approved...)

 

[ZXDunny]

Actually, this would be fine by me. So long as it's not the default OS installed on NAND and is only installable on a bootable SD card. The way I see it is this:


If you actually download and boot this OS, then you know what you're getting into and you (by default) want all non-free PNDs to be hidden from you. It would be different if this were the default OS - that would be forcing FSF ideals on people, and that is restricting their freedom quite badly via censorship.


Of course, there are those of us that will be marking all our PNDs as free from now on, regardless of whether or not they contain proprietary binary code


D.

 

[Exophase]

Given the restaurant analogy we are going by... In most places I've been to, the menu has little indicators for stuff like lactose-free (or low lactose) for people with lactose-intolerance, etc. So in that vein I think (in general) that it would be a good idea to have the License field visible in any package browser we ship by default even in the normal SW, and for the fully free version we could maybe grep for the list of FSF approved licenses by name, and have a by-default-ticked box in a settings page for "only show free software" and a small warning when you un-tick it... That would work as long as people dont do evil things like "License: Not GPL" so a foss tag might be a good addition later. Also, you might need to add weird things like "SciTe License" ( http://www.scintilla.org/License.txt ) to the accepted list... (According to wikipedia that is a minimal http://en.wikipedia...._and_Disclaimer which is FSF approved...)

I agree with this. And if someone wants to make an option for PNDManager to hide whatever license that's fair too. I just think it's silly to make it so that it becomes a fixed part of the software/actively requires a separate fork.

 

[ZXDunny]

I agree with this. And if someone wants to make an option for PNDManager to hide whatever license that's fair too. I just think it's silly to make it so that it becomes a fixed part of the software/actively requires a separate fork.

Not just silly - that would be actively censoring people "for their own good". And we all know where that ends up.


D.

 

[diligentcircle]

Given the restaurant analogy we are going by... In most places I've been to, the menu has little indicators for stuff like lactose-free (or low lactose) for people with lactose-intolerance, etc. So in that vein I think (in general) that it would be a good idea to have the License field visible in any package browser we ship by default even in the normal SW, and for the fully free version we could maybe grep for the list of FSF approved licenses by name, and have a by-default-ticked box in a settings page for "only show free software" and a small warning when you un-tick it... That would work as long as people dont do evil things like "License: Not GPL" so a foss tag might be a good addition later. Also, you might need to add weird things like "SciTe License" ( http://www.scintilla.org/License.txt ) to the accepted list... (According to wikipedia that is a minimal http://en.wikipedia...._and_Disclaimer which is FSF approved...)

The restaurant analogy is flawed, mostly because a restaurant is not something you own. A computer is. If we want to try to use food as analogy, it would be your own kitchen, i.e. this is like refusing to have meat in your refrigerator. But that analogy breaks down because you don't need to have a meat-free kitchen distributed to you, and you can't.


I agree with ZXDunny for once. It's not the default OS; it's a custom OS specifically for free software advocates like me. Remember, this proposed OS alternative does not work with 3D or WiFi, the second of these features being very important if you don't have a WiFi dongle (and still a nice thing to have even if you do). There is no reason for it to offer help in installing nonfree software; the default OS already does that. Also notice that I said help, not "the option". You can always install the nonfree software if you want, without the help of the package managing software of the OS. In the case of the Pandora, it's even easier than on desktop PCs: just go to the Repo website and download the nonfree PNDs you want Heck, you can even download vanilla PNDManager. I once did that with Trisquel (installed VVVVVV), and to a lesser extent I still do that (AssaultCube, which is free software but with nonfree art assets).