Re: [GNU-linux-libre] A call to free software, and its users

[Diego Saravia]

We live in a connected world. Every thing has a relationship with
everything. You cant live isolated

So, we need to put rational and useful limits. And that limits is to
distribute free material, that´s the compromise

We could go one step further, so we could not provide direct links to
a propietary material. We have the problem to identify what is a
direct link. Perhaps something that contain the url of the bad bits,or
had automatism that could get them.  But is not easy. wget is an
automatism. I dont see a way to be conceptual clear about that.
Printing the name of file could be using google, a way to an
automatism.  But google itself is a kind of automatism to get answers,
so lets forbide google searchs.


Its really dificult to go further, we will have a lot of contradictions.

And in fact going further will make our work not transparent, we will
have to do stuff to block users, or dont telling users what we know.


2009/8/18 Diego Saravia <address@hidden>:
> *do you include wget in your distribution?
>
> if so, you are encourgaging users to download propietary software, blame you
>
> *do you include gnash in your distribution?
>
> you are encouraging users to download flash videos, and so encouraging
> producres to use propietary software, an all of them propietary
> formats, blame you
>
> *do you distribute propietary images, or images with trademarks?
>
> you are encouraging people to enjoy them, blame you
>
>
> We live in a connected world
>
>
> 2009/8/18 Sam Geeraerts <address@hidden>:
>> I've been following the "Freedom issues" thread from a distance. It was also
>> brought up in a conversation with Paul O'Malley (one of the guys who set up
>> gNewSense). We concluded that it'd be useful to look at the basics to
>> provide some clarity.
>>
>> We're all familiar with the four freedoms:
>> [0] The freedom to run the program as you wish.
>> [1] The freedom to study it and change it the way you want.
>> [2] The freedom to give copies to others.
>> [3] The freedom to give your own improvements to others.
>>
>> We value and promote these freedoms and so recognize that non-free software
>> oppresses the user.
>>
>> Let us try to understand this whole "suggesting non-free software" and what
>> it means to a user. If one was to suggest a fully proprietary system, all
>> people on this list would be in shock. So let's not do that. Let's look at
>> the field of endeavour. In a lot of GNU/Linux distributions there is a lack
>> of understanding of what a Free Software system is, at least if we are to
>> judge it by the FSF's four freedoms.
>>
>> How can I prove this? There are programs that should not be in some systems,
>> and they were not put there by users, they were put there by developers. For
>> instance: Downloader for X (a.k.a. d4x) and Ivman.
>>
>> Now it is the case that even Wikipedia has notes on why some of these
>> programs are non-free. So we understand that a license which is vague or
>> non-existent is not free. For reference, see gNewSense and GLX. It took a
>> lot of work, but that software is now fully free after being removed from
>> gNewSense.
>>
>> So what is it that means that a distribution should action the removal of
>> software? Most GNU/Linux distributions don't do a lot of navel gazing. Paul
>> told me that gNewSense was formed with that in mind. When Brian and Paul
>> were putting gNewSense together, they were almost ready for release in their
>> initial view when they removed the "restricted modules" and the Multiverse
>> component of Ubuntu. The matter was raised on IRC and a Dutch developer
>> pointed out to them that work needed to be done on the Linux kernel too. No
>> further reference was made to this. They started digging through the source
>> and found binary blobs (Binary Large Objects). They started to remove these
>> from the kernel. Then they released their first release with the caveat that
>> the only bugs they want are Freedom bugs.
>>
>> So why were these blobs bad? Simply put: they had no source code. As you
>> should be able to "edit" and most people can't parse blobs, Brian and Paul
>> felt that these had to go (see the deblobbing script, which became
>> linux-libre). However, more issues occured.
>>
>> Let's look at Firefox. The issue with it has nothing to do with trademarks,
>> because they don't make software free or non-free. They just restrict what
>> you can call it. Software is about users having functionality, not about
>> having the same name as upstream while changing the program time and again.
>> So Firefox has an "API" called "addons". When we examine this, a lot of the
>> software that addons "add" is not Free. So, if we freedom lovers include
>> Firefox in our distributions, then we have a problem: we are including
>> software which suggests to people that installing any addon is OK. We know
>> that some of this software is not good, so this is a bad idea because it
>> encourages non-free installations. It makes it harder to explain what Free
>> Software is when we compromise for a popular program, or code that enables
>> some non free software. Therefore we should abandon these paths. By all
>> means reverse engineer it and provide a free version.
>>
>> So if we suggest these addons, by having that code included, then we are
>> saying to users that it's OK to install the addons. To discourage this
>> behaviour, the code that points to the addons is removed. Because of the
>> trademark, the name had to be different. In version 1 of gNewSense there was
>> Burning Dog. In version 2 there's a pointer to GNU Icecat. So this addon
>> behaviour is no longer an issue for users.
>>
>> If a user comes to us and says "I use XYZ", we can then explain how non-free
>> software takes their freedom away. So suggesting non-free software at kernel
>> level or in the packages is not OK, because it oppresses our users. Perhaps
>> it is better to lead by example than to be tainted? At least we get to have
>> a relevant conversation with people.
>>
>> We can all approach this as rational human beings supporting Free Software.
>> Some people suggest that you should really proclaim your view as being
>> supreme, and justify it using the 4 freedoms to prove your case. You should
>> never, ever encourage someone to install non-free software. People have the
>> freedom to do what they want, but we hackers should never oppress our users!
>>
>> A casual observation of the list suggests that people are not making
>> allowances for the fact that we do not all speak the same native language,
>> (blame that on history  ;-)  ) please make calm claims and calmer counter
>> claims of each other, it does nothing for the cause to be emotional about
>> your views or other peoples views. This only creates misunderstanding and
>> division. It does not help our community in its battle for the universal
>> adoption of Free Software. We are attacked from the outside enough without
>> presuming to make enemies of each other, which are most likely minor
>> misunderstandings.
>>
>> It may be useful to remember the other person may not be able to express the
>> view they want to as accurately as they might want, and you may not be
>> understanding that communication as well as you think, in particular if the
>> message was not sent with 100% accuracy, which although we strive for it,
>> English is buggy and there is no upstream to fix it.
>>
>> Happy Software Freedom Day Every Day!
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Sam Geeraerts
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Diego Saravia
> address@hidden
> NO FUNCIONA->address@hidden
>



-- 
Diego Saravia
address@hidden
NO FUNCIONA->address@hidden