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

[Karl Goetz]

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:44:27 +0200
Sam Geeraerts <address@hidden> wrote:

> 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

So far so good, I'm still following.

> "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

So here I start to be unsure of what your saying.
Are you saying Firefox has an issue because
 - it can load any sort of plugin (simply having the functionality
available),

*or*
 - its a problem because it encourages installing non-free software (an
example of this is suggesting installing adobe flash on flash based
websites).

*or*

- A mixture of various points, none of which I've listed?

> 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.

This implies to me that your against anything which can load add ons,
but that seems a bit odd.... am I miss-understanding you here?

> 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. 

I'm in agreement here.

> Perhaps it is better to lead by example than to
> be tainted? At least we get to have a relevant conversation with
> people.

I'm not sure what your saying here in relation to being tainted.

> We can all approach this as rational human beings supporting Free 
> Software. [...] People have the freedom to do what they want, but
> we hackers should never oppress our users!

It has seemed to me one of the problems in this discussion is where the
line is drawn between 'supplying free software' and 'oppress[ing] our
users'.

The two viewpoints I can discern from the discussion to date are:
- loading the firmware if found is not ok (whatever happens with the
'not found' warning), and means your supporting the oppression of users.
- refusing to load the firmware is oppressing users (whatever happens
with the 'not found' warning).

kk

-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group

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