On Fri, 30 Nov 2012, 00:29:41 LHST, Osamu Aoki <os...@debian.org> wrote:
> Hi, > > Before discussing what action to take etc., let's make an gap analysis > between FSF thought on FREE SYSTEM DISTRIBUTON and current Debian by > going back to "Guidelines for Free System Distributions" published by > FSF. > http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html Thanks for doing this comparison. I have comment ob a few points and cut out any i wasnt commenting on - i hope its not seen as attacking in any way. > Let's check one by one for Debian system (this means "main" only) > * License Rules ------- Debian qualifies without question > FSF requires free license only for direct functional applications. > Debian requires free license for all. It would be worth checking which licenses there is disagree ment on, as i recall there are some. > * Nonfree Firmware ---- Debian qualifies without question > (Debian removed firmware blobs so nothing to complain here.) pretty sure the debian kernel team and linux libre people disagree on what makes something firmware in many cases, though i have not looked in the last 12 months. Linux libre also rejects known problematic firmware , dont know if its a requirement for the free distros list or not though. > * Documentation ------- Debian has serious conflict > FSF allows some non-free documentations to be included but Debian does non-free in debians opinion :) > not. Exclusion of such non-free documentations is not explicitly > listed as problem. There is fundamental conflict between FSF > restriction for instructions "for installing a nonfree program on the > system, or mention conveniences they might gain by doing so." vs. > Debian Social Contract 4. I expect a number of list readers wont know what this is (iirc priority to free software and users?) > Possible remaining issues: > 1) Exclusion of GFDL documentation of some essential software packages. > This may be weak objection point from FSF based on "Complete Distros". Sadly i dont see them fixing their licence to be debian compatible any time soon :/ > PS: As far as package dependency, there are no non-free packages listed > as the primary choice under depends nor recommends. There are very > limited cases which lists non-free packages as the second choice. Thats being discussed in other places, we should probably avoid doing it here too :) thanks, kk _______________________________________________ Fsf-collab-discuss mailing list Fsf-collab-discuss@lists.alioth.debian.org http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-collab-discuss