Re: [GNU-linux-libre] FSDG processes

[Christopher Baines]

Gábor Boskovits <address@hidden> writes:

> Following a recent discussion regarding chromium on guix-devel, I got
> interested in a few aspects of free software.
>
> I have a number of question, and if you could refer me to
> documentation regarding that, or just answer me in mail, I would
> greatly appreciate that.

I haven't really been following the discussions around chromium, but I
have some opinions on the points below.

> 1. If there is a free software, how do we ensure that it remains free,
> or that it gets into the list of software with freedom issues? Do we
> supervise each commit? Do we check the upstream bug tracker for
> freedom related bugs? Do we have a central place, where freedom
> related bugs can be reported?

In the case of Guix, improving the review process for changes should
help avoid any non-free software slipping in. There are a number of
things that could be better automated, e.g. diffing sources and
comparing the output of licensecheck.

As for a central place to discuss freedom related issues in software,
maybe the Free Software Directory is somewhat central [1].

1: https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page

> 2. If there is a claim, that a given software has freedom issues, do
> we accept that without any investigation? How do we protect ourselves
> from a malicious actor faking these reports to hurt the reputation or
> market share of a software? On the contrary, if we get a report that
> the freedom issues don't exist any more, then we have to investigate
> that?

In terms of Guix, issues with licensing and copyright in Guix can be
thought of as bugs. Bugs are tracked, investigated and hopefully
resolved.

In terms of freedom issues that have been resolved, if some software was
removed from Guix, then re-submitted, hopefully the review process upon
re-submission would clarify if it's now suitable or not.

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