"Respects Your Freedom" certification?

[Exophase]

Okay, instead of "GPL-compatible" what I really meant to have said is "FSF-compatible." Is the meaning clearer to you now? The real sticking point for me is I want to make it clear we're talking about FSF's particular set of ideologies and not some kind of universally or even widely acknowledged ethical standard.

 

[_wb_]

Okay, instead of "GPL-compatible" what I really meant to have said is "FSF-compatible." Is the meaning clearer to you now? The real sticking point for me is I want to make it clear we're talking about FSF's particular set of ideologies and not some kind of universally or even widely acknowledged ethical standard.

Fair enough.

In the context of computer software freedoms, when considering alternatives for the proprietary mainstream, I would consider the FSF ideology as being one of the most widely recognized ideologies though, together with that of the Open Source Initiative. For the purpose of the RYF certification, the difference between FSF and OSI is negligible (the only hint of a difference between those two camps is in the terminology requirement). As far as I know, the OSI does not have a hardware endorsement campaign comparable to FSF's RYF certification. Are there any other organizations we should consider?

 

[comradekingu]

Free is free as in FOSS, don't know of any party who doesn't subscribe to that model. There is always open source or closed source if you like less of "it" for the user.

Asking him to take it out of his sig is really pathetic.

But that never happened...

 

[Grench]

context, please revise.

Edit: also, before attempting to understand what other people write, try to make sense of your utterances.

You are repeating lies without any foundation in reality. I even spelled it out for you and you failed to get it...

Barking up the wrong tree trying to patronize me. You draw your own lies into the conclusion, in turn proving little else but your own invincible ignorance.

Again with the personal insults and no content to add to the discussion. It's getting old.

 

[comradekingu]

There arent any personal insults there. You misunderstand what I write, and what the FSF writes. I guess it isnt by accident you have to turn that against my character instead.

As for contributing, I'm countering you FUD. Other than that, you might want to look into my arguments, which you so carefully amiss.

Edit: Craigx promotion video was discussed on irc, and it pretty much checks every box for what is outside the legal scope.

"Steer towards" means you promote something more than the alternatives, or give credibility to it by way of official recommendation. Impartiality is devoid of any such notions, and thats where everyone wants to be it seems.

 

[_wb_]

Let's keep this thread on-topic.

You can continue the hysterical ranting in this split off thread:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/14887-the-fsf-are-communist-bastards-split-from-respects-your-freedom-certification/

Thank you.

 

[Grench]

Let's keep this thread on-topic.

You can continue the hysterical ranting in this split off thread:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/14887-the-fsf-are-communist-bastards-split-from-respects-your-freedom-certification/

Thank you.

Unwritten rule of moderation: Never mod censor your own thread based on ideas and statements unless they directly violate the forum rules.

The discussion was relatively civil. There was no hysterical ranting involved. Your statement that there was 'hysterical ranting' discloses your emotional reaction.

You gave it the thread title, "The FSF are communist bastards! (split from: "Respects Your Freedom" certification?)". That shows a clear emotional reaction on your part.

That post and side thread may not have followed your own personal feelings or convictions, but they were not irrational or invalid. The only 'ranting' done there was from you in creating the new thread title.

You brought up the side topic (Socialism = good). I feel that attitude has parallels to the topic itself (FSF/RYF certification). The primary proponents in this thread in favor of FSF/RYF appear to also consider Socialism a good thing. I see direct parallels to the FSF/RYF's structure, methodology and restrictions and those of 'Socialist' regimes.

How claimed 'Socialist' countries and the FSF/RYF are similar:

* Both are self-proclaimed governing bodies.

* Both claim to be doing it 'for the people' and 'on their behalf'.

* Both require exclusivity of thought and publication.

Moving portions of the thread that you disagree with to 'Off Topic' was censorship. Placing them in an 'off topic' thread removes their relevance to THIS topic. I feel that the censorship of this thread was inappropriate and done for your personal reasons rather than any practical necessity.

************

Back on topic, did the FSF ever reply to your inquiries around RYF certification for a device advertised using a video of proprietary games to show it's stated primary purpose?

 

[moxie]

NVM.

 

[_wb_]

Back on topic, did the FSF ever reply to your inquiries around RYF certification for a device advertised using a video of proprietary games to show it's stated primary purpose?

No, still waiting for a reply from them. I suppose they want to take their time. I gave them some pointers with reading material - I couldn't assume they know everything about the Pandora - one of them being this very thread. As you can imagine, it may take them a while to go through all that material, especially with all those deep, insightful, political analyses.

 

[Grench]

Back on topic, did the FSF ever reply to your inquiries around RYF certification for a device advertised using a video of proprietary games to show it's stated primary purpose?

 No, still waiting for a reply from them. I suppose they want to take their time. I gave them some pointers with reading material - I couldn't assume they know everything about the Pandora - one of them being this very thread. As you can imagine, it may take them a while to go through all that material, especially with all those deep, insightful, political analyses.

In the spirit of 'Open', would you be willing to publicly post a copy of your correspondence here?

 

[_wb_]

Sure, why not. This is the email I sent to the FSF:
 

Spoiler

From jon@cs.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 5 14:38:59 2013
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 14:38:58 +0100 (CET)
From: Jon Sneyers <jon@cs.kuleuven.be>
To: licensing@fsf.org
Subject: OpenPandora Respects Your Freedom?


Dear FSF,

I am a Free Software enthusiast and an OpenPandora hacker. I am not myself
part of the OpenPandora Team. I just like the device a lot. See the
Wikipedia page for more information about the device:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openpandora

Recently I found out about the "Respects Your Freedom" certification. I
think this certification would possibly be suitable for the OpenPandora
project and/or its successor. On the Pandora forum, there is an ongoing
discussion about this (initiated by me; my nickname is "_wb_"):

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/14049-respects-your-freedom-certification/

While I think the general philosophy of the FSF and the OpenPandora
largely overlap, we of course also have to look at the details. Looking at
the general criteria for RYF hardware, there are some potential issues.
This email is meant to get some clarification.


Potential issue 1: GPU driver
--------------------------------------

"All the product software must be free software. The product software
includes all software that the seller includes in the product, or provides
with the product, or recommends for use in conjunction with the product,
or steers users towards installation in the product."


The OpenPandora ships with pre-installed software that is based on the
Angstrom GNU/Linux distribution (http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/).
To my knowledge, all the shipped software is Free Software, with the
exception of a binary blob GPU driver (the device has a TI OMAP3 SoC,
which includes a PowerVR SGX GPU) and some firmware that gets uploaded to
the wifi chip.

"However, there is an exception for secondary embedded processors. The
exception applies to software delivered inside auxiliary and low-level
processors and FPGAs, within which software installation is not intended
after the user obtains the product. This can include, for instance,
microcode inside a processor, firmware built into an I/O device, or the
gate pattern of an FPGA. The software in such secondary processors does
not count as product software."

As far as I understand, the above can be interpreted to mean that the
non-free wifi chip firmware can be forgiven (since it does not run on the
CPU), but the non-free GPU driver is still problematic since part of the
driver runs on the CPU.


Reverse-engineering the PowerVR has been on the FSF high priority list for
quite a while now. Sadly not a lot of progress has been made so far.

If a free driver would exist for the PowerVR, that covers all or most of
the functionality and has a comparable performance to the non-free driver,
I am sure that the OpenPandora team would ship the free driver instead
of the non-free driver. But at the moment they do not have that choice.

Question 1: Would it be necessary to remove the binary blob GPU driver
from the OS shipped with the product in order to get the RYF
certification?


If the answer is yes, then the device would effectively not have a GPU
(since there is no free alternative), which is probably not acceptable to
the OpenPandora Team.

Please note that the OpenPandora is a small niche device, produced by
amateurs. They have to use a SoC that exists and can be bought in low
qualities (thousands, not millions). The options are very limited, and
they do not have the leverage to demand the GPU drivers to be released as
free software.

This is also likely to remain a problem for a possible Pandora successor;
they are currently considering to use the TI OMAP5 SoC which also has a
PowerVR GPU. There are other SoCs with a GPU where reverse engineering has
made more progress (e.g. Mali), but those are either not suitable (e.g.
consume too much power) or not available in low quantities.


"We want users to be able to upgrade and control the software at as many
levels as possible. If and when free software becomes available for use on
a certain secondary processor, we will expect certified products to adopt
it within a reasonable period of time. This can be done in the next model
of the product, if there is a new model within a reasonable period of
time. If this is not done, we will eventually withdraw the certification."

The above corresponds to the vision of the OpenPandora project as well. If
and when a free driver for the PowerVR GPU becomes available, it will be
embraced by the OpenPandora community and the OpenPandora itself would
probably even be an ideal development platform for such a
reverse-engineering project.




Potential issue 2: steering towards installation of nonfree software
--------------------------------------


"By way of explanation, a general-purpose facility for installing other
programs, with which the choice of programs to install comes directly from
the user, is not considered to steer users toward anything in particular.
However, the product suggests using the facility to install certain
programs, that is steering users towards those programs."

On the OpenPandora, there are two main facilities for installing software.
One is based on opkg, a package manager like Debian's APT. It is used
mainly for updates to the core OS, and as far as I know all the packages
in the default repository are free software.
The other one is a community-maintained software repository known as "the
repo" (http://repo.openpandora.org/), where anyone can upload software of
any kind. It contains mostly free software, but also closed-source
freeware and some closed-source commercial software.

Question 2: I assume that this is fine w.r.t. RYF certification, right?


Potential issue 3: advertizing nonfree software
--------------------------------------

"Other Misleading Endorsements

Companies awarded RYF certification for a given product, must not
distribute any product-related materials with endorsements or badges to
proprietary software, such as "Works with Windows" or "Made for Mac"
badges, because these would give an appearance of legitimacy to those
proprietary packages, and may make users think the product requires them.
However, we don't object to clear factual statements informing the user
that the product also works with specific proprietary operating systems."


The Open Pandora Team advertizes that the device can also run Android,
and they show screenshots and videos of the device running both free and
nonfree software (including commercial games and emulators emulating
nonfree roms)

Question 3: Does this count as endorsing proprietary software?



Potential issue 4: terminology
--------------------------------------

"Specifically, the seller must use the term "GNU/Linux" for any reference
to an entire operating system which includes GNU and Linux, not "Linux" or
"Linux-based system" or "a system with the Linux kernel" or any other term
that mentions "Linux" without "GNU". Likewise, the seller must talk about
"free software" more prominently than "open source.""

Currently the OpenPandora Team often uses the word "Linux" without "GNU"
when referring to the OS, and they tend to use the words "Open Source"
more often than "Free Software". I suppose that is something that would
need to change. Sometimes they do already get it right though, e.g. the
title of this subforum:

"Pandora OS (SuperZaxxon GNU/Linux)
Everything about the standard GNU/Linux-Distribution on the Pandora."

http://boards.openpandora.org/forum/41-pandora-os-superzaxxon-gnulinux/




Potential issue 5: bounty program
--------------------------------------

"Bounty program

The FSF and the seller will jointly set up a bounty program to encourage
the public to report any failure to follow these conditions, with a view
to correcting the failures. In this program the FSF will give a small
reward to the first person to report any compliance problem in the product
previously unknown to the FSF. The FSF will forward the reports to the
seller."

Question 4: Is this bounty reward paid for by the FSF or by the device
manufacturer? The OpenPandora Team probably does not really have a budget
for this.



Thanks in advance for your answers!

Jon Sneyers

So far, I only got this automatic reply:

Spoiler

Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 08:42:12 -0500
From: FSF Licensing Questions via RT <licensing@fsf.org>
To: Jon.Sneyers@cs.kuleuven.be
Subject: [gnu.org #867823] AutoReply concerning licensing question: OpenPandora Respects Your Freedom?

This message has been automatically generated in response to a
licensing question you sent to the Free Software Foundation, with subject:
        "OpenPandora Respects Your Freedom?".

There is no need to reply to this message right now.  Your request has
been assigned an ID of [gnu.org #867823].

Please include the string:
         [gnu.org #867823]
in the subject line of all future correspondence about this issue.  To do
so, you may reply to this message.


Thank you so much for writing to the Free Software Foundation's
Licensing and Compliance Lab. Questions sent to this address are
answered largely by volunteers, with the help of FSF staff. We have the
following licensing resources available which you might find helpful:

Licensing FAQ page: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Text of the GNU GPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Text of the GNU LGPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
Text of the GNU AGPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html
Our license list page: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

We can always use more help in answering licensing questions (check out
our license team page on Libreplanet if you are interested in helping
out <http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Free_Software_Foundation/Licensing_Volunteers>),
so we thank you for your patience as you await a response. You can also
help the licensing team by making a donation at <donate.fsf.org>. Your donations are
what enable us to offer this service to the community.

We do offer consulting services for companies who are working to develop
products that incorporate free software so that they can do so in ways
that comply with the terms of the GPL and other free software licenses.
If you are interested in this service, please write a separate message
to compliance-lab@fsf.org.

                        Sincerely,
                        FSF GPL Compliance Lab Office

 

[Grench]

Very good start. I would add:

Potential issue 5: Speech restrictions

"The seller must use FSF approved terminology for the FSF's activities and work, in all statements and publications relating to the product. This includes product packaging, and manuals, web pages, marketing materials, and interviews about the product."

"Cooperation with FSF and GNU Public Relations

The seller must use FSF approved terminology for the FSF's activities and work, in all statements and publications relating to the product. This includes product packaging, and manuals, web pages, marketing materials, and interviews about the product.

Specifically, the seller must use the term "GNU/Linux" for any reference to an entire operating system which includes GNU and Linux, not "Linux" or "Linux-based system" or "a system with the Linux kernel" or any other term that mentions "Linux" without "GNU". Likewise, the seller must talk about "free software" more prominently than "open source.""

Does certification require the licensee to submit to the FSF for approval the product packaging, manuals, web pages, marketing materials and speaking points for interviews through the FSF prior to publication or event?

Potential issue 6: Contractual obligations

"The following page outlines the general criteria for hardware products that bear the Respects Your Freedom hardware certification mark. However, each certified product carries with it contractual obligations that may differ from those listed on this page."

Is this contract process free and open or does it require a signed NDA?

Is the resulting contract an open license, free for all to view, or is it required to be kept confidential between signatory parties?

What is the wording of the, "contractual obligations" that the FSF requires of it's licensees?

Potential issue 7: Exclusivity to FOSS

"100% Free Software

All the product software must be free software. The product software includes all software that the seller includes in the product, or provides with the product, or recommends for use in conjunction with the product, or steers users towards installation in the product."

"Confusion with Other Products

To prevent confusion among customers about exactly what product has been certified, any other products offered by the seller, which are not certified by the FSF, must be easily distinguishable from certified products: their names must not be similar and their packaging must also not be similar."

"Other Misleading Endorsements

Companies awarded RYF certification for a given product, must not distribute any product-related materials with endorsements or badges to proprietary software, such as "Works with Windows" or "Made for Mac" badges, because these would give an appearance of legitimacy to those proprietary packages, and may make users think the product requires them. However, we don't object to clear factual statements informing the user that the product also works with specific proprietary operating systems."

Although having a FOSS alternative is laudable, the above requirements when combined may be interpreted as requiring a closed and exclusive system that is restricted to only including FOSS. This requirement of exclusivity to FOSS appears to be hypocritical as any restriction would make the platform less open. Is the team restricted to only advertising and/or speaking about FOSS capabilities and no pictures statements or endorsements to the contrary are allowed?

We have a desire to create the most open and flexible device possible. This includes being open to alternative (even commercial) OS builds and commercial (pay) software.

Can drivers for non-free OS builds be included on the otherwise FOSS device and meet certification requirements?

Can non-free software be used in the advertising, box art, web page and discussions surrounding the device and meet certification requirements?

 

[_wb_]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll wait for the reply from the FSF before asking more questions though - and perhaps some of their answers will make some of the above questions redundant anyway.

 

[comradekingu]

5: Headline misleading. No, it only covers what is stated. It states elsewhere it has no resources to retroactively do what you describe.

6: Nowhere does it say its an NDA, or rather that the contents are under NDA. Also, you dont license anything, to my knowledge, unsure where that came from. Do you mean the artwork?

7: Headline misleading. Interpretation wrong. 7.2 no, which isnt contrary to prior statement. 7.3 partly yes. If its an alternative.

The general idea is that freedom refined is more free. Once you start to take away from the freedoms you describe you are talking about something else. Which in the original context is less free.

 

[Grench]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll wait for the reply from the FSF before asking more questions though - and perhaps some of their answers will make some of the above questions redundant anyway.

Sounds like a good plan.

5: Headline misleading. No, it only covers what is stated. It states elsewhere it has no resources to retroactively do what you describe.

6: Nowhere does it say its an NDA, or rather that the contents are under NDA. Also, you dont license anything, to my knowledge, unsure where that came from. Do you mean the artwork?

7: Headline misleading. Interpretation wrong. 7.2 no, which isnt contrary to prior statement. 7.3 partly yes. If its an alternative.

The general idea is that freedom refined is more free. Once you start to take away from the freedoms you describe you are talking about something else. Which in the original context is less free.

Unless you are making claims to be a representative of the FSF, your statements are irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

If you take a look at the top rated and top downloaded PNDs on the repo, you'll find a large percentage of FOSS software as well. DraStic is a notable exception, and there are other notable exceptions, but most of it is FOSS. And most of that FOSS software are existing FOSS projects that could be ported to the Pandora (and adapted for its screen size and controls) precisely because they were FOSS.

Sorry for the late post, have been away for a couple of weeks (one week of which was spent with the Linux Foundation you may be please to know!), I did have a thought though, looking at the 'Most Downloaded' software, 8 out of 10 are emulators of some description. The use case for this emulators > 99% of the time, will be to play closed source, commercial games. So yes having open source emulators means they could be ported to the Pandora, so yes open source has good uses, the but reason anyone even wants these emulators is to play closed source, commercial games. So in terms of Pandora success based on repo downloads, the real driving force here is closed source, commercial software in my opinion. I would be happy to compromise and say their is equal importance, and this is basically the crux of most of my posts, both options are important and provide worth, we shouldn't favour one over the other.

p.s. I haven't read the read of this thread (since I went away), but I did just want to quickly add this point as it occurred to me whilst away the last couple of weeks and though it interesting/worthwhile.

 

[_wb_]

You can also use emulators to play potentially open-source homebrew software for those devices. But I guess that's not how they usually get used.

Anyway, that's not the point. We're not talking about applications, we're talking about hardware and the OS that ships with it by default. It's about the platform itself, not about the license of all possible software packages that you can install on it. Of course some people are mostly interested in playing proprietary closed-source games (roms or binaries). Maybe that's even the majority of the Pandora users, I wouldn't know. That doesn't matter for the RYF certification: of course you can choose to install and run proprietary software on an open platform, that's the whole point: you can do what you want. Part of being able to do what you want is having full control over the device, and for that you need firmware that is FOSS - with proprietary firmware, it is impossible to get full control over your device.

Also I don't agree that closed-source commercial software is the driving force in the Pandora community. Sure, emulators are popular, but most of them are open source; of course most roms are not, but it's a bit of a stretch to claim that proprietary game devs from many years ago are the "driving force" of the 2013 Pandora community.

Let's take a look at the most downloaded PNDs:

1. Firefox - FOSS
2. DraStic - closed-source freeware
3. PCSX ReARMED - FOSS
4. Mupen64plus - FOSS
5. PNDManager - FOSS
6. Snes9x4P - FOSS
7. UAE4ALL - FOSS
8. PPSSPP - FOSS
9. FBA - FOSS
10. PicoDrive -FOSS
11. PNDStore - FOSS
12. Super Geometry Dust - freeware, closed-source?
13. Pandora System Info - FOSS
14. gpSP - FOSS
15. Minitube - FOSS
16. DosBox EX Ultimate - should be FOSS, Streak is probably violating the GPL by releasing a non-free fork of DosBox
17. Midori - FOSS
18. ScummVM - FOSS
19. Java runtime - FOSS or proprietary (you can choose)
20. SMPlayer2 - FOSS

And you can go on like that for a while. I think it is safe to say that FOSS is the real driving force here.

 

[pmprog]

DosBox EX Ultimate - should be FOSS, Streak is probably violating the GPL by releasing a non-free fork of DosBox

Wouldn't it be enough for Cmdr Beef to release the DosBox portion of code to fulfill the GPL requirement? A seperate UI application (not using DosBox code) does not require the same license as a program it interacts with.

 

[_wb_]

DosBox EX Ultimate - should be FOSS, Streak is probably violating the GPL by releasing a non-free fork of DosBox

Wouldn't it be enough for Cmdr Beef to release the DosBox portion of code to fulfill the GPL requirement? A seperate UI application (not using DosBox code) does not require the same license as a program it interacts with.

Sure, if his frontend is a separate program, he can choose whatever license he wants for it. But he still has to give the sources for his modifications (if any) to DosBox itself, and provide correct license information and pointers to the sources for the GPL'ed software he is distributing. Also, he does not mention the original authors and the license of DosBox itself, and he makes it look like the entire thing (frontend+main software) was written by him. He specifically asks people to donate money to him, while arguably the core component of the software package he is distributing was not written by him and is GPL'ed. That is behavior I frown upon.

 

[ZXDunny]

Let's take a look at the most downloaded PNDs:

• Firefox - FOSS
• DraStic - closed-source freeware
• PCSX ReARMED - FOSS
• Mupen64plus - FOSS
• PNDManager - FOSS
• Snes9x4P - FOSS
• UAE4ALL - FOSS
• PPSSPP - FOSS
• FBA - FOSS
• PicoDrive -FOSS
• PNDStore - FOSS
• Super Geometry Dust - freeware, closed-source?
• Pandora System Info - FOSS
• gpSP - FOSS
• Minitube - FOSS
• DosBox EX Ultimate - should be FOSS, Streak is probably violating the GPL by releasing a non-free fork of DosBox
• Midori - FOSS
• ScummVM - FOSS
• Java runtime - FOSS or proprietary (you can choose)
• SMPlayer2 - FOSS

And you can go on like that for a while. I think it is safe to say that FOSS is the real driving force here.

I'm not so sure, looking at that list. These are pretty much all either emulators or interpreters. Now, to my mind there are two practical reasons to choose FOSS (disregarding the "I choose FOSS because it's the right thing to do" reason, as that has no practical application, just a sense of self-worth):

1. To get a port of the software to the platform of your choice easily

2. To fork a software to add functionality that wasn't designed in originally

I would say that very close to 100% of those were chosen for reason 1) above, rather than because of any particular ideology. i.e, they were chosen because it was the path of least resistance to getting their beloved old and retro gaming fix on the Pandora. Had the original authors of those emulators created Pandora versions themselves rather than opening their source, those emulators would still be as high as they are on the list.

He specifically asks people to donate money to him, while arguably the core component of the software package he is distributing was not written by him and is GPL'ed. That is behavior I frown upon.

So long as he hasn't modified the core of DOSBox, then he's not breaking the GPL AFAICS. And it's perfectly legal to charge money for it - the GPL makes provision for that.

And given that he's put a lot of effort into that front-end, why should he not charge?

D.