Re: [H-source-users] Shall we remove debian from h-node? (was Re: [bug #63209] devuan GNU/Linux not on list of supported distributions)

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Thu, 13 Oct 2022 20:28:44 -0400
bill-auger <bill-auger@peers.community> wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 10:49:13 +1100 Yuchen wrote:
> > Let's see what others have to say on this.  CCing Ian and FSF
> > Campaigns to this thread.  
> 
> devin has been prodding me for information for an article he
> wants to write about h-node for an upcoming FSF newsletter -
> there is not much news-worthy to report; but maybe the topic
> could just be to ask the community for opinions on a few of the
> issues we have been kicking around - i sense that without input
> from the FSF and the community, that these may never be decided
> 
> * remove debian or add devuan?
> * add replicant and hurd?
Replicant has already been added. And for Guix with HURD, if I remember
well, everybody agreed to follow your suggestion to mention it in
"tested with the following kernel libre" and not as a distribution.

> * whitelist kernel modules instead of distros? - so that entries
>   could be submitted using any distro, while assuring that
>   "works with free software" is always correct
As I understand still keeping the information about the distribution is
useful because there is a lot of corner cases, like firmwares loaded
from userspace software and not going through the kernel at all for
instance. In addition sometimes there are nonfree userspace drivers for
printers for instance.

> * add categories for SBCs and phones?
I don't remember the status of that, but the main idea was to have a
general "computer" category too to make it more clear that you can add
anything that is a computer.

I think that beside the very last discussions, a lot of work went on in
h-node:
- Local modifications were removed from the website code. Thanks to
  that work, we can now contribute to the server code again. And new
  patches were reviewed and merged (like the ones adding Replicant for
  instance).
- The website code was updated to work on newer
  (Trisquel?) distributions.
- The h-node client was migrated to python3. It was also packaged in
  Guix, so we can also install it on FSDG distros like Trisquel where
  h-node is not packaged yet (if I recall well).

  Though it won't work on Replicant or LibreCMC (Replicant: because of
  kernel version, LibreCMC: because Guix doesn't support mips32 big
  endian).

  It could contain a call to package it in distributions like Trisquel,
  and for distributions to add it in their installation images/ISOs for
  easier testing.

- Bugs were solved, for instance we had issues with the server hanging
  and the submissions (through h-client) not going through.

Though I'm not sure what was the status last time something was written
about h-node, so maybe not much has changed since the last time.

Another idea would be to make statistics (if that's possible) with the
recent additions to the database. For instance:
- How many new hardware was added
- What proportion does or doesn't work with free software

It could be combined with information about newer issues commonly found
in newer computers (like more nonfree firmwares, or specific nonfree
firmwares) and/or with a promotion of FSDG distributions as a tool to
understand the free software status (Since the FSDG distribution do not
ship nonfree software, that gives us more clues about what works and
what doesn't work without nonfree software, though a lot is still
hidden in the BIOS/UEFI for instance, like CPU microcode updates, GPU
bytecode used by the GPU drivers, etc).

Denis.

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