Re: [GNU-linux-libre] DSFG in perpetuity

[Jason Self]

Julie Marchant wondered about this.

Past discussions of this are in the list archives and probably on the 
Linux-libre mailing list too. The general summary is that it's one thing 
when someone goes and does something on their own. It's another thing 
when their system tells them. 

And people have shown up on distro mailing lists asking how to install 
the stuff that the kernel was telling them to. There was an example of 
this on the Trisquel forms not too long ago when a microcode request was 
not properly changed in Linux-libre, resulting in the kernel telling the 
person to install the updated microcode. So they showed up asking how to 
do that.

To make a quote from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html

"The issue here is not whether people should be 'able' or 'allowed' to 
install nonfree software; a general-purpose system 'enables' and 'allows' 
users to do whatever they wish. The issue is whether we guide users 
towards nonfree software. What they do on their own is their 
responsibility; what we do for them, and what we direct them towards, is 
ours. We must not direct the users towards proprietary software as if it 
were a solution, because proprietary software is the problem."