Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Adding some scummvm game(s) to the "List of software that does not respect the Free System Distribution Guidelines".

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Here we already have everything we need to reach a conclusion about
  > ScummVM without bringing in rationale that are too much subjective.

That may be so now for ScummVM, but if you're proposing the goal of
using a rigid rule to eliminate all judgment about cass and their
consequences, that is misguided as explained it my other messages.
Such rigidity could lead to clearly wrong results.

First, suppose that next month we discover one game that uses ScummVM
and is indeed free software.  Would that alter the fact that ScummVM
has little use except to promote nonfree software?  Should we have rules
that require us to change policy and encourage distros to include it,
because of that one free game?

No.  We should continue to urge distros not to include it, even if its
actual utility in the free world is tiny rather than exactly zero.

This illustrates the point that with a totally rigid rule, a small
change in the situation can lead discontinuities.  We should make
non-exact judgments so that we can treat .001 like zero.

Second, consider all the programs that use third-party package
managers that include nonfree software.  Each of these programs would
be excluded from free distros right now if we applied our rules
rigidly.  The fact is, we have made an arbitrary exception for them,
because we could not take on the matter of fixing those problems.

That was not right, but we never built up the will to do any better.

We should stop making that exception and fix these problems instead.
But that will take some years.  We should continue the exception, for
each package manager, until we have fixed it.

The drawbacks of a strict rule are more bearable on a small scale.  We
can and should be strict in rejecting nonfree software from within a
package.  But strictness about third-party package managers would be a
mistake.  We have to be flexible so we can make a plan to fix those
problems, over time, but not be unreasonably rstrictive until then.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)