Please stop confusing the criteria for calling something an FSF-ensorsed GNU/Linux distribution, and the criteria for the "Respects Your Freedom" hardware product certification. The requirements are not the same!
"Respects Your Freedom" certification?
- Thread starter _wb_
- Start date
Grench
Forum Addict!
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2008
- Messages
- 6,629
Why would, 'has DRM-enabling hardware and software' make it non-free?Oh, I didn't consider that interpretation - I interpreted "packaging" as the cardboard box, not the case. If that's really what is meant, then it seems a bit overly harsh - after all, the current Pandora could be confused with a Nintendo DS from a suitable distance
I'm assuming that what they want to avoid is having something like the hypothetical "Dragonfly DX0346" and the "Dragonfly DX0347", which are sold by the same vendor and look the same in every way except some of the fine print on the box, but they are completely different in the sense that the *6 has the RYF certification, while the *7 has DRM-enabling hardware and software. In such a case, it would be easy to confuse things, and have someone think "the Dragonfly is FSF-endorsed" and buy the *7 to find out later that is not at all.
That is akin to calling any library with a chemistry book in it a terrorist cell.
Or how about the ability to play ROM files making it called a software pirate's device.
Having the structure and information available to do something, 'knowledge', does not equate to, 'crime' in rational trade organizations. Only religious organizations have this level of limitations on knowledge and how it can be presented - with excommunication of individuals who violate their practices.
Again, it is the irrational and militant nature of the 'criteria' being applied by a committee of radicals that puts me off of this organization.
Their basic principles, like those of most religions, are sound. Their application of them seems to be more like an inquisition though.
There is nothing to be gained, and a degree of free will and self direction to be lost, by applying for certification.
Making a device that would meet the requirements is a good goal to have on the 'goal sheet'. Applying for certification and then having to bow to a regulator over what can and can not be done and how it can be done - that is a waste of effort.
The tens of people for whom FSF and RYF certification would attract will also know that the device is, 'as free as it gets'. If they only buy devices with certification, then they're living in a dark box right now and anything that is 'close' would shed some light.
By that phrase I mean hardware that makes it impossible to run arbitrary code and the software that runs on it is restrictive enough to turn your hardware into something non-Turing complete. I think it is obvious why such a thing is non-free.
ghostpatch
Active Member
your referring to paragraph Formats I assume? I'm not sure if NTFS counts as such? its at least not clear to me
honestly never herad about NTFS-3G but its very cool (need check it out further)
The only downside seems to be no support for encryption and creating/modyfining copressed files
my point was beeing able to easily interact with another eco system which is Windows. For example your at school, university or work and want to quickly share a file. Usually you use some sort of usb memory device beeing either FAT32 or NTFS - the last can be a problem. Of course there are ways. I know its not impossible to achieve with free software, but this is a mixed community. Not everyone is a Linux Guru
Grench
Forum Addict!
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2008
- Messages
- 6,629
No, you distinctly said, 'has DRM-enabling...', not, 'is restricted to using only DRM...'. There is a huge difference between the two statements.
Having DRM-enabling vs. requiring DRM. Every one of your SD cards has DRM-enabling hardware and software in it. That does not prevent or even hamper 'free' use of it.
Now, proclaiming that all SD cards are forbidden because they would violate FSF and RYF certification by there sheer presence of DRM enabling technology...
Or do you want to remove SD, SDIO, and USB (licensed technologies) from this hypothetical future device entirely?
The line is very fuzzy - not worth even applying to have it drawn around the device.
comradekingu
Glowing ember
NTFS and fat32 is not a problem, in any sense whatsoever. It is only a problem if you use it for the installation and ship devices with it. Which is why ext2 , exfat and f2fs exist. There are better alternatives, plain and simple.
DRM enabling hardware is just not needed, and it costs royalties to the MPLA consortium you can push 720p with software(cpu) if it comes down to it. The HDMI consortium im not so found of either, but thats another matter.
I fail to see why an SD card is non-free. What DRM is there on my SD cards?
DRM enabling hardware is just not needed, and it costs royalties to the MPLA consortium you can push 720p with software(cpu) if it comes down to it. The HDMI consortium im not so found of either, but thats another matter.
I fail to see why an SD card is non-free. What DRM is there on my SD cards?
Grench
Forum Addict!
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2008
- Messages
- 6,629
Note the description of SD media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_memory_cards
"Small (32×24×2.1 mm3), DRM, up to 4 GB. (2 GB and 4 GB cards use larger block sizes and may not be compatible with some host devices. See Article)"
Article reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_digital#SD_cards_.28non-SDHC.29_with_greater_than_1_GB_capacity
"Card security
[SIZE=small][edit source | editbeta[/SIZE]]
Cards can protect their contents from erasure or modification, prevent access by non-authorised users, and protect copyrighted content using Digital Rights Management (DRM)."
"
DRM copy-protection[SIZE=small][edit source | editbeta[/SIZE]]
All cards incorporate DRM copy-protection. Roughly 10% of the storage capacity of an SD card is a "Protected Area" not available to the user, but is used by the on-card processor to verify the identity of anapplication program that it then allows to read protected content. The card prohibits other accesses, such as users trying to make copies of protected files. (Reformatting an SD card may erase this Protected Area; see Risks of reformatting below.)
The DRM scheme embedded in the SD cards is the Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM or CPPM) specification of the 4C Entity, which features the Cryptomeria cipher (also termed C2). The specification is kept secret and is accessible only to licensees. The scheme has not been broken or cracked; however, this feature of SD cards is rarely used to protect content. DVD-Audio uses the same DRM scheme."
Although rarely if ever enabled by end users, SD cards are equipped with hardware and software that enable DRM.
In theory, a software company could write software to an SD card with DRM enabled such that the software will run only from the card and require the card to be inserted to run - and prevent copying. It is rarely practiced.
As I said, rarely. There were games published to SD media by Tapwave (Zodiac 1&2) that were DRM enabled.
So, is the presence of DRM hardware and software in the SD devices a preclusion for inclusion in the FSF/RYF certification?
Is the presence and requirements of using SD cards, in itself, a reason to flunk certification?
Last edited by a moderator:
The criteria say, "The device may support formats that are hampered by Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), but it can only use free software to do so."
Right, but the hardware has to come with (and only recommend) what FSF consider 100% Free Software, so would that prevent RYF hardware from shipping with stock Debian?
Last edited by a moderator:
I guess it boils down to someone who is actually involved in creating the hardware checking the requirements and figure out if it's feasible or if it will end up in an endless chain of: "oh no, I need to re-invent the wheel for that" or "oh no, I have to find a free (as in free-dom) alternative for [...]".
I mostly agree with the "giving up freedom to wear a freedom-batch does not make much sense" arguments, but I admit that I do not care enough about the issue to get into any deep discussions.
It does seem pretty extreme to me, because I feel that there is too much "black or white" thinking involved. Whenever this topic comes up it always sounds like "you're not trying hard enough!" instead of giving some credit to projects at least trying to follow the principle idea behind this. Embracing those who are pretty close instead of rejecting anything which is not a 100% "purified" would probably turn a lot of the current critics into supporters.
I mostly agree with the "giving up freedom to wear a freedom-batch does not make much sense" arguments, but I admit that I do not care enough about the issue to get into any deep discussions.
It does seem pretty extreme to me, because I feel that there is too much "black or white" thinking involved. Whenever this topic comes up it always sounds like "you're not trying hard enough!" instead of giving some credit to projects at least trying to follow the principle idea behind this. Embracing those who are pretty close instead of rejecting anything which is not a 100% "purified" would probably turn a lot of the current critics into supporters.
Last edited by a moderator:
As far as I understand, it has to ship with something 100% Free (like Debian with nothing from their non-free branch already installed). Shipping it with proprietary binary blob software would not be allowed. It would also not be allowed to ship it with some minimal "installer" that is Free itself but whose only purpose is to download and install the actual non-free OS.
They would probably prefer to have it shipped with an actual 100% Free distro, i.e. one that does not have any non-free packages in it (even if those don't come pre-installed in shipped units), but I'm not sure if that is a hard requirement. It would not be difficult to satisfy that requirement if it is in fact a requirement: as far as I know, the current openpandora opkg distribution satisfies it except for the GPU (and wifi?) blobs in the kernel.
@Grench: No, the presence of SD cards would not be a problem, unless the device comes shipped with (or recommends using) proprietary software that actually uses the DRM features of SD cards. You can check the criteria yourself.
comradekingu
Glowing ember
Can we get into the habit of calling debian free, because it is free, as in freedom, 100% It doesnt install anything from non-free by default, and leaves the choice of even enabling it, down to the user. An equivalent Free that is purged of all things FSF deem to be bad for the user is FSF-free. I guess the difference is what your entry-view is. In practice i dont see users taking on freedom in 100% chunks. I came from windows, i learnt to hate that first. Maybe that card could have been played better before MS took over, but lets learn our lesson.
Im a hardware person, we seemed to agree on hardware, and it all goes back to hardware. If you have the right hardware, and don't for some reason install the generic way, but rather customized to what you actually have, you wont have those non-free firmwares loaded. Debian takes a pragmatic approach, yes it has the ability, even separated repos. That is not an apartheid system. Get over it. Im a norseman, i know a troll when i see one.
Personally im not that bothered about modules I am not loading, stuff im not running, where it comes from is only important in a security aspect. Having a separate non-repo is convenient because i find in the free one not only better software, its also more convenient for me so that i can get my freedom along with the deal. I like the non-free repo, so i know where not to look. It keeps everyone honest. No matter how level you make the playing field nowadays, free software just has an advantage, even before you really get into why.
Sure, you could turn the tables and ask the other way around. What if free software didn't work for me. I asked that question, because i found that to be the case then, but lo and behold, the world is great now. Back in 32bit x86 world 2005 when i started out slowly with Linux the question was different. And much of it came down to "user inability"
. I would say freedom was a vector, a predominant one, since usability wasn't what it is today, it kept me interested, it kept me coming back, kept me interested.
If the effort since then, is invested into shipping junk hardware at slave-labour prices out of china, we have lost something.
The way i see it GPLv2 allowed restrictions to happen, it was inevitable. The FSF in retrospect could not have known it all, and much of the GPLv3 was a response to that, a natural progression. The FSF isn't infallible, nor is the Pandora, if we went back to do it again, it would be knowing the things we should have known better about, but at the time, just as non infallible as the FSF is. This time around lets set the bar even higher.
Back to 2006, in the before GPLv3 time. I got my Nokia E61 smartphone. I had my GP2X. And while better than what I had before, i hoped for something better. I wished for Linux smartphone-adaption. Since then android has come around, but it isn't _good enough_, it wont be in the foreseeable future either. But I'm happy it isn't worse, I'm happy its the predominant operating system for electronic devices, because it used to be a lot worse. So its the major player, people are using Linux, (so what?) we aren't there yet, it needs more GNU.
We _are_ trying to do something new here. It wasn't like the hackers of the 70s didn't write their software on the very much non-free unix. In fairness to them, it was in response to the systems getting more and more closed down.
They scratched their own itch, but what makes the difference to us today is they did it with the right ideas in mind.
You cant rely on ethics of major corporations when you pit them into a competition with each other where playing dirty gives an advantage. Maybe if this message reached out to a broader audience we wouldn't have to see the rise and fall of Microsoft, which built the most evil, restricted OS. In the age of digital security. Apple is in many ways worse, they routinely use open source for what its worth, perfecting the ethos of shitting on freedom for the sake of convenience.
TL;DR Debian, regular armhf, on hardware that is supported by free drivers, would be amazing.
Software isnt the problem, (it was on that nokia e61) and a free hardware computer is very much a next step ahead.
Lets make that happen, and use FSF and everyone else who want to join in, for what its worth.
Im a hardware person, we seemed to agree on hardware, and it all goes back to hardware. If you have the right hardware, and don't for some reason install the generic way, but rather customized to what you actually have, you wont have those non-free firmwares loaded. Debian takes a pragmatic approach, yes it has the ability, even separated repos. That is not an apartheid system. Get over it. Im a norseman, i know a troll when i see one.
Personally im not that bothered about modules I am not loading, stuff im not running, where it comes from is only important in a security aspect. Having a separate non-repo is convenient because i find in the free one not only better software, its also more convenient for me so that i can get my freedom along with the deal. I like the non-free repo, so i know where not to look. It keeps everyone honest. No matter how level you make the playing field nowadays, free software just has an advantage, even before you really get into why.
Sure, you could turn the tables and ask the other way around. What if free software didn't work for me. I asked that question, because i found that to be the case then, but lo and behold, the world is great now. Back in 32bit x86 world 2005 when i started out slowly with Linux the question was different. And much of it came down to "user inability"
. I would say freedom was a vector, a predominant one, since usability wasn't what it is today, it kept me interested, it kept me coming back, kept me interested.If the effort since then, is invested into shipping junk hardware at slave-labour prices out of china, we have lost something.
The way i see it GPLv2 allowed restrictions to happen, it was inevitable. The FSF in retrospect could not have known it all, and much of the GPLv3 was a response to that, a natural progression. The FSF isn't infallible, nor is the Pandora, if we went back to do it again, it would be knowing the things we should have known better about, but at the time, just as non infallible as the FSF is. This time around lets set the bar even higher.
Back to 2006, in the before GPLv3 time. I got my Nokia E61 smartphone. I had my GP2X. And while better than what I had before, i hoped for something better. I wished for Linux smartphone-adaption. Since then android has come around, but it isn't _good enough_, it wont be in the foreseeable future either. But I'm happy it isn't worse, I'm happy its the predominant operating system for electronic devices, because it used to be a lot worse. So its the major player, people are using Linux, (so what?) we aren't there yet, it needs more GNU.
We _are_ trying to do something new here. It wasn't like the hackers of the 70s didn't write their software on the very much non-free unix. In fairness to them, it was in response to the systems getting more and more closed down.
They scratched their own itch, but what makes the difference to us today is they did it with the right ideas in mind.
You cant rely on ethics of major corporations when you pit them into a competition with each other where playing dirty gives an advantage. Maybe if this message reached out to a broader audience we wouldn't have to see the rise and fall of Microsoft, which built the most evil, restricted OS. In the age of digital security. Apple is in many ways worse, they routinely use open source for what its worth, perfecting the ethos of shitting on freedom for the sake of convenience.
TL;DR Debian, regular armhf, on hardware that is supported by free drivers, would be amazing.
Software isnt the problem, (it was on that nokia e61) and a free hardware computer is very much a next step ahead.
Lets make that happen, and use FSF and everyone else who want to join in, for what its worth.
Last edited by a moderator:
ZXDunny
Deep avatar
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,585
ghostpatch
Active Member
just read something funny about the Adreno open source driver project
"The Freedreno project is turning out quite well for a personal project that was announced back in April without the support of Qualcomm. Rob Clark continues to be employed by Texas Instruments working on the OMAP Linux graphics driver but works on Freedreno in his spare time." source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0ODQ
eh?
"The Freedreno project is turning out quite well for a personal project that was announced back in April without the support of Qualcomm. Rob Clark continues to be employed by Texas Instruments working on the OMAP Linux graphics driver but works on Freedreno in his spare time." source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0ODQ
eh?
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, the guy works for TI so he cannot work on reverse-engineering the PowerVR or the Mali because working for TI, he had to sign NDAs that cover those. So he chose to RE the Adreno instead.
@ZXDunny: Nobody proposes to rename Debian - comradekingu was just saying that he considers Debian to be a Free distro (even though the FSF doesn't; they object to the non-free branch on their servers). Renaming the entire Debian project to "Debian Linux" would be misleading, since it contains GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD and GNU/Hurd.
@ZXDunny: Nobody proposes to rename Debian - comradekingu was just saying that he considers Debian to be a Free distro (even though the FSF doesn't; they object to the non-free branch on their servers). Renaming the entire Debian project to "Debian Linux" would be misleading, since it contains GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD and GNU/Hurd.
ZXDunny
Deep avatar
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,585
sebt3
homebrew player (P. & C.)
What you run is indeed a debian linux. But that's not the entire project. There is also a debian Hurd and a debian kFreeBSD part of the projet. Let's say that debian linux is one of the products of the debian project
You are free to customize your GRUB bootloader menu entries, but the default name that Debian calls itself - not just in the bootloader but also anywhere else - is definitely "Debian GNU/Linux" (at least if you're using the Linux kernel, otherwise it is called Debian GNU/<something else>).
Of course if you want to change your boot menu to say "ZXDunnyOS 3.14" instead of the default name, you are free to do so. But don't insist that that should be the proper name for the distro, just because "it says so on my GRUB screen".
Of course if you want to change your boot menu to say "ZXDunnyOS 3.14" instead of the default name, you are free to do so. But don't insist that that should be the proper name for the distro, just because "it says so on my GRUB screen".
Grench
Forum Addict!
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2008
- Messages
- 6,629
So, even though Debian has wholly free version without any paid drivers, etc... Just because the same group has non-free software that they can also offer means they fail.
Regardless of having done 'good' for the community, Debian is still forbidden just because they want their developers and maintainers to be able to buy food for their families. Because they, much like Redhat, want to be able to supply and support Linux in business environments, which costs money to do and must be charged for, their free offering isn't free enough.
Not only then would they not give Debian or Redhat their 'blessing' for providing a fully functional free version of their OS product, they would go the step further of failing any product that even used the free-only version of that OS.
The child is guilty of the parent's sin and must be purged.
What a bunch of !$#%.
The full quote about why FSF don't endorse Debian:
Debian is Free according to the rest of the world outside the FSF, and the different repos are clearly separated. Sounds like the sin here is informing the users of their options.
Last edited by a moderator:
Similar threads
