Re: [GNU-linux-libre] PureOS non-free repo

[bill-auger]

On 01/20/2018 01:54 PM, Caleb Herbert wrote:
> 
>> So in some ways maybe it could be seen as similar to RPM Fusion? 
> 
> That's what I think, and it makes sense that the RPM Fusion method was
> accepted, because the FSDG derives from Fedora guidelines.


to be clear, the "RPM Fusion method" is acceptable because fedora does
not officially endorse or even recommend it - it's softwre is accessed
only by the user explicitly adding the foreign URL to their mirror list;
which could be any standard RPM repo hosted by anyone, just as ubuntu
"PPA"s can be easily used in trisquel or debian non-free repos can be
easily used in pureos and gnewsense, if the user choses to do so - it is
not the aim of the FSDG to prevent users from installing their choice of
software; only that FSDG distros should not recommend or assist in using
non-free software



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] add uruk gnu/linux

[bill-auger]

my first though this morning was to claim a highly coveted GNU-Buck by
reporting the purio.sm non-free repos as this does appear to be exactly
the same thing that makes debian nonFSDG; but after some thought, i
realizedthere is a distinction in that debian exists solely for the
purpose of producing debian and the debian non-free repos exists solely
for the purpose of enhancing debian - the purism situation is notably
different from that and when i saw that the pureos website makes no
mention of the puri.sm repos, i decided that there was no problem with that

the only issue i have with pureos is one that applies equally to uruk -
that is: how exactly is pureos different from gnewsense? how exactly is
pureos different from debian? how exactly is gnewsense different from
debian? and how exactly is uruk different from trisquel? as far as i can
tell these are essentially synonyms aside from the servers hosting the
packages and the people maintaining them; and whether or not they have
non-free repos and who hosts those - that is surely the impression one
would get based on the information (or lack thereof) on the endorsed
distros web-page - to be clear: what would those short, one-sentence
descriptions say, that would not compel the reader wonder, "so these are
identical? why did they bother liberating ubuntu twice"?

if someone in 2015 wanted a FSDG-compliant debian they needed look no
further than gnewsense - it was a bit out of date at that time but not
much; so clearly, the most sensible thing to do in order to advance the
state of the art would have been to join the gnewsense team and help
push out the next release - but instead, pureos was created - this
implies one or two things - either purism approached gnewsense asking to
join the team and their help or stated goals were rejected; or they had
no interest in gnewsense and created pureos not to fill any niche but
exclusively to flatter the commercial brand of purism - i am not sure
which was the case; but either way, such splintering does not serve the
progress of FSDG distros optimally - if the purism computers were
shipped with Gnewsense2017, no one would be asking if the non-free
puri.sm repos were inappropriate; and the operating running on purism
computers would be maintained by a larger group of people, not
exclusively employees of purism

i am aware that i may be missing some facts and this is not to to
disparage purism specifically; because the same can be said for
uruk/trisquel - though as i understand, they wanted a liberated ubuntu
that was to be managed by the community rather than a BDFL, so they have
at least that one notable distinction (as in: "uruk is a community
maintained liberated version of ubuntu") - not to say whether or not
that is a valuable distinction to make; but that i dont see how pureos
distinguished itself in any way other than the words: "... with a focus
on privacy, security, and convenience"; as if to imply that debian does
not have those things - what those words mean, according to the pureos
website, is that they have certain privacy-related packages
pre-installed; presumably, packages that are also available in debian
with a simple apt-get command - IMHO, that is not a terribly meaningful
or convincing distinction to label it as something other than another
debian "spin" - to be fair, gnewsense also makes no attempt to
distinguish itself technically from debian, only ideologically

unless it can be shown that it was absolutely necessary to create pureos
rather than re-vitalize gnewsense, then it's existence can only be seen
as a publicity stunt to the detriment of gnewsense (detriment aka: "slap
in the face") - perhaps i am missing some important facts? - perhaps the
pureos effort just had more "steam" or "young blood" and so a case could
be made that the gnewsense team should have joined the fledgling pureos
effort, if only for trendy, populous reasons - i would be very
interested if someone can show this presumption to be inaccurate



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] PureOS added to endorsed distro list - what about the kernel?

[bill-auger]

Alexandre -

thanks for that detailed explanation - i have been curious about this
myself - i must say though that it did not address what is the actual
behavior preventing the debian kernel from being acceptable, which as i
understand is not related to its ability to load any modules but simply
that it prints names to a log in the form of a error message - why is it
not possible to simply change or suppress the error message printed to
the log or to later or periodically scrub the logs of the naughty bits



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] PureOS non-free repo

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:16:49 -0800 (PST)
"Jason Self"  wrote:
> Another problematic point seems their statement that "all new laptop
> shipments include Meltdown and Spectre patches, as they will have the
> latest PureOS image (that includes the Meltdown patch) preloaded"
There are Software patches to mitigate Meltdown and Spectre issues in
software like Linux or Firefox based browsers.

As for the microcode, they can ship it to new customers without having
to touch PureOS at all. This can be done in Coreboot by selecting
"Include CPU microcode in CBFS (Include external microcode header
files)" during the compilation.

> I realize that, in the FSF's announcement of endorsing PureOS, they 
> said that it wasn't "a certification of any particular hardware 
> shipping with PureOS" although some people might buy Purism's
> computers thinking that they're getting an FSF-endorsed distro along 
> with it that doesn't have any proprietary junk when -- by Purism's
> own announcement -- they're shipping with it included.
I run PureOS on a Thinkpad X200 that runs a 100% free software Coreboot
image[1].

There is a PureOS bug tracker where we can report bugs[2], including
freedom issues with PureOS. I've already reported 1 freedom issue and I
hope it is or will be fixed.

I looked for a potential microcode update with "apt search microcode"
and found nothing. So this is good news.

Like with other FSDG compliant GNU/Linux distributions, there might be
some packages that needs to be fixed, and it would be nice to open bug
reports on that.

I'm personally very interested in PureOS because it's is supposed to be
FSDG compliant, and can replace Debian in some cases. I intend to use
it to be able to compile Replicant without depending on Debian, to fix
one of the FSDG-compliance issues Replicant has.

It would be nice if PureOS could run on all architectures that Debian
runs on, as we would have an FSDG compliant GNU/Linux distribution that
would run on more hardware that can function with only free software.

I also didn't find x86 32bit versions of PureOS, which is sad because a
lot of Libreboot compatible hardware is still 32bit only.

So far we have, as general purpose GNU/Linux distribution:
- Parabola that can run on ARM.
- Guix that can also run on ARM.

Trisquel doesn't run on ARM, and as far as I know we have no easy to use
general purpose distribution for ARM.

It would also be nice to have more FSDG distributions, for instance I
came across Hyperblola[3], which claims to be FSDG compliant. I didn't
find it in the official list of FSDG compliant distributions[4].

I also wonder whether all the distributions listed there are maintained
and if not, it would make sense to move the unmaintained distributions
in another section (like "Historic", "Unmaintained distributions", or if
we want new maintainers, "Distributions looking for new maintainers").

References:
---
[1]Coreboot itself is not entirely free software: The freedom you get
   depends on the hardware and the build configuration you use.
   I use hardware and build configuration that doesn't include any
   nonfree software in the image.
[2]https://tracker.pureos.net/tag/freedom-harm_need_nonfree_code/
[3]https://www.hyperbola.info/
[4]https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

Denis.


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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] add uruk gnu/linux

[Riley Baird]

And, while we're on the topic, I'd like to remind everyone that it's
been more than 3 years since LibertyBSD was released.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 12:45:47 -0800
Ivan Zaigralin  wrote:

> I think this is a very good idea. I have to confess, we are not feeling very 
> confident while FreeSlack is stalling in the review queue.
> 
> In our case, we've been informed that "FreeSlack" is afoul of FSDG because 
> it's too similar to "Slackware". We pitched "Freenix" and "FXP" as 
> replacement 
> distribution names in April 2017, and haven't heard a word since. This puts 
> us 
> in an interesting position: when our users ask us, so what are you guys 
> called 
> again?, all we can say is: not FreeSlack.
> 
> We also receive regular suggestions/requests to get the FSF certification. 
> And 
> of course we do tell our users what exactly is going on, the way we see it 
> from our side, but wouldn't it be like 100 times more easy and reassuring for 
> the users to read FSF's own Changelog of the review process? If users rely on 
> FSF certification to pick distributions, they won't be quick to blindly trust 
> the claims of progress made by projects still under initial review.
> 
> On Friday, January 19, 2018 14:51:02 Robert Call wrote:
> > If the problem is time and resources, could the FSF maybe start a page
> > on https://libreplanet.org that would show : the distros that have
> > asked the FSF to be reviewed, which ones have started the public review
> > process and document the issues have been found? It would offer a bit
> > more transparency and everyone would be on the same page as to where in
> > the review process the distros are.
> > 
> > Maybe the endorsed distro review process could be handled in similar
> > way that the FSF directory is maintained and the FSF could teach people
> > where to look for non-free things in these distros. The goal would be
> > to get more people actively involved in the review process.
> > 
> > Hopefully these (or other) solutions could pave a way forward. Even
> > with a lack of time and resources, I don't think it is acceptable to
> > not respond to distro maintainers that had already started the review
> > process, just a "we are still looking into it" or "there is still an
> > issue with x" would be sufficient.