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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Recognizing the GNU system as a free distro


From: Jason Self
Subject: Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Recognizing the GNU system as a free distro
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 09:33:07 -0700 (PDT)

Ludovic Courtès asked:
> But, what does "source code" mean here?  Does it mean the source that's
> made available using the distro tools, such as 'apt-get source'?

That's my understanding of it.

> What kind of changes are these, typically?  Are these changes to debian/
> files (such as adding new patches), or are these changes outside of the
> debian/ directory?

They run the gamut: Some are branding, some are freedom-related, some
are privacy-related. So, whenever the Trisquel developers want to
modify a package coming from Ubuntu (for any reason), a Helper is
usually made so that the work can be automated and only needs touching
if the Helper fails for some reason. Even that can be limited to
modifying the Helper and then re-running the package import process.

Some examples are changing the default settings in their browser (a
modified version of Firefox called A Browser to get around Mozilla's
trademark problems) so that it sends the Do Not Track header by
default, or ripping out the non-free software out of the kernel
(Ubuntu adds more non-free stuff to what already comes from kernel.org
so the kernel helper makes use of a modified version of the
Linux-libre deblob script to handle the Ubuntu-specific additions), to
removing a menu option in VirtualBox that's used to install non-free
drivers etc. The debian directory also needs modifying sometimes, like
when renaming packages (Firefox to A Browser for example) or when
changes might be needed in other cases.

> 'guix build --source' [0], which is really a developer's tool

Although could be used by anyone.

> So, do we want ‘guix build --source’ to return the already-patched,
> FSDG-compliant source?

Hopefully others will weigh in but that is my understanding. Exactly
how that happens can be a distro-specific decision, I think.

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