Re: [GNU-linux-libre] the straw that broke the camel's back
Richard Stallman writes:
> > Ricardo also seems to have perceived the Recommendation as
> > authoritarian ("ban") and subjective ("arbitrary rules and personal
> > interpretations of these rules").
>
> Once in a while a person who normally thinks intelligently will
> misunderstand something simple and easy and fly off the handle.
> Such things happen once in sa while,
> We can hope he realizes his misunderstanding.
>
> But it makes no sense to adopt a policy of rejecting simole and easy
> solutions in the hope that people won't fly off the handle.
It is disappointing that you choose to label my judgment of the
discussion, the process that is exemplified by the quality of the
discussion, and the attitudes towards this process as “flying off the
handle”.
This is certainly a more convenient position to take when the
alternative is to acknowledge defects in (or lack of) a
consensus-finding process — not just in how free distributions cooperate
(or rather *don’t*), but in any top-down decision. Unfortunately, this
is a common pattern in GNU and the wider community of free
distributions.
--
Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Adding some scummvm game(s) to the "List of software that does not respect the Free System Distribution Guidelines"
John Sullivan writes: > On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 10:20:28PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: >> [[[ 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. ]]] >> >> > ... it is because to me, _no_ games are important enough to deserve such >> > fuss - they are purely for entertainment; so they are inherently low >> priority >> > - from that perspective, we may as well be discussing how many "lady >> gaga" >> > videos we can distribute - answer: "i dont care - we have bigger fish to >> fry >> > today" - "zero" is as good as any other amount - lets just decide, then >> move on >> > with due haste >> >> That is roughly what I think, too, but not quite exactly. >> I think it is of some importance to have free games and to distribute them. >> No users _need_ games, but many users _like_ games. >> Offering them free games can (1) help them enjoy using free systems >> and (2) illustrate that they can develop more free games. >> >> However, that is not pertinent to ScummVM. Distributing ScummVM >> has at best a minimal relationship to making free games more available. >> >> Basically, John's argument makes a mountain out of a molehill, takes a >> gram of that mountain, and makes inflates that to a mountain again. >> > > Unsubscribing based on this. The above is not an argument at all, and in > no way helped advance the conversation toward a logical, evidence-based > conclusion. I really don't care that much about ScummVM -- I care about > a sound process for making decisions about the application of the FSF's > guidelines, which this is not. I second John’s conclusion. This is no way to conduct a productive conversation. I find it worrying that an attempt is made to make a wide-ranging decision to ban useful free software from being distributed in FSDG distros while ridiculing arguments against that decision. For me the conclusion is obvious: I’ll just ignore whatever actions this group declares as decided when *this* is exemplary of the decision making process. The tendency to ban, break, or mutilate free software applications to make them conform to arbitrary rules and personal interpretations of these rules (see the discussion about package managers for more examples) alienates me enough from this group to not bother interacting with it more. -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Developing free non-gnu operating systems
Jean Louis writes: * Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli [2021-09-30 17:11]: Guix has some of these programming language package managers too. The advantage of Guix over other distributions here is that it is in better position to fix things if something goes wrong. This reminds me of the issue I have filed in Guix and which was competely ignored since years related to GPL liense compliance, which was re-filed and mentioned again and then again ignored. Please tell us the issue numbers so that we can see the discussions. (Ignoring your submissions may have coincided with your pattern of abusive behavior on our mailing lists.) From GPLv3: ━━━ 6. Conveying Non-Source Forms. Guix does convey non-source forms of software. It has binary substitutes. These are not source code. 3. Guix does not maintain responsibility to remain obligated to ensure that packages are available for as long as needed. They should host source code in my opinion, but I think they don't. We cache source code for as long as it is feasible. We have lots of disk space, but that will eventually run out. We also partner with Software Heritage, where we download source code (identified by hash) if the source code is not on our disks. -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] is this work-group still serving the community?
bill-auger writes: distros which distribute NMAP did roll it back, but of their own volition (or implicitly, in the case of pureos, as their NAMP is apparently taken from debian) - that is fine; but then guix moved it forward, apparently without asking the FSF if that was acceptable (or if they did ask the FSF, no one bothered to share that information with this work-group, where the question belongs, for the benefit of other distros) Some references: Commit 86fec62f0920d619b798639cbb728e9765ebd724 (2021-01-10) previously downgraded nmap 7.91 back to 7.80. Commit 1b313032943db85e0d6b8550d02671036f3a5d36 (2021-07-02) upgraded to 7.91 with reference to https://github.com/nmap/nmap/issues/2199#issuecomment-792048244, which states that 7.91 can be used under the terms that apply to 7.80. If the terms of 7.80 were non-free then nmap should have been removed rather than freezing it at 7.80. -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] is this work-group still serving the community?
Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli writes:
For projects like Guix for instance, it could probably be
improved by
making sure that new contributors, especially people that never
heard
of the FSDG before, do not miss that information.
An example of that would be to make it really prominent in the
instructions to contribute (if it's not done already) or in
other
places where contributors would go, and try to explain it to
people
that didn't really understand it in general, and if possible try
to
convince them with good arguments that it's a good thing for
Guix.
The contributing manual does that. See the section “Software
Freedom”, which says this:
--8<---cut here---start->8---
@c Adapted from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html.
@cindex free software
The GNU operating system has been developed so that users can have
freedom in their computing. GNU is @dfn{free software}, meaning
that
users have the
@url{https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html,four
essential freedoms}: to run the program, to study and change the
program
in source code form, to redistribute exact copies, and to
distribute
modified versions. Packages found in the GNU distribution provide
only
software that conveys these four freedoms.
In addition, the GNU distribution follow the
@url{https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html,free
software distribution guidelines}. Among other things, these
guidelines
reject non-free firmware, recommendations of non-free software,
and
discuss ways to deal with trademarks and patents.
Some otherwise free upstream package sources contain a small and
optional
subset that violates the above guidelines, for instance because
this subset
is itself non-free code. When that happens, the offending items
are removed
with appropriate patches or code snippets in the @code{origin}
form of the
package (@pxref{Defining Packages}). This way, @code{guix
build --source} returns the ``freed'' source rather than the
unmodified
upstream source.
--8<---cut here---end--->8---
--
Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [LibrePlanet]: New Presentation
Jean Louis writes: > * Goo Goo Knox via gnu-linux-libre [2020-09-28 > 16:21]: >> Hi All, >> >> I am planning to apply for a session in upcoming LibrePlanet conference, to >> present a topic on this project. >> >> Here is the self-shot version of the presentation, >> https://fs333.gounlimited.to/tea5ur5c2h2qzxfffn4yv5jg53piwzbdni5tp7o7twot3lgjhc2w5gxv2g5a/v.mp4 > > Not found on the server. This person is a known spammer and has repeatedly posted links to pornography to the #guix IRC channel and the mailing lists; all claiming to be presentations about Guix or screenshots of error messages. -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Free distros in Emacs
Ineiev writes: > Emacs maintainers would like to list FSDG-compliant distros > in the description of the Emacs GnuTLS integration, […] > Could you provide data for your distros? On Guix System the global certificate bundle will usually be /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt (though it may also be absent and installed to a custom location.) -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [PATCH] gnu: Add ungoogled-chromium.
bill-auger writes: > if we do not FIRSTLY apologize to pureos for asking them to remove > chromium and publicly endorse them to re-instate it, then endorsing it > into guix would be hypocritical and shameful I find this use of “we” confusing. I don’t feel motivated to apologize to the people involved in PureOS because I wasn’t around when they were pressured / convinced to drop Chromium. I don’t know if any of the regular Guix contributors have. In day to day Guix activities, we don’t ask developers of other distros that also happen to subscribe to the FSDG to reach consensus before making project decisions. You are suggesting that FSDG distros form a community beyond the sense that they abide by the same guidelines. I don’t think that’s reflecting reality. It’s another thing to discuss if this should be so. With regards to the Chromium upstream bug report about the license script and the suggestion that upstream doesn’t know what license their code has, I’m satisfied with this comment: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=28291#c31 The script appears to be not very successful in detecting valid license declarations in third party code. FWIW, in my opinion it would be unreasonable to further delay Marius’s work from becoming part of Guix. I see no violation of the FSDG here. -- Ricardo
Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software
alírio eyng writes: > Isaac David: >> However in the last few days I have >>seen many arguments showing there are yet more valid uses I hadn't >>imagined, like learning from the source code and testing portability >>without leaving your comfy libre OS. > source code is out of question for a distro, unless you want to > compile and execute it (or just have a package that copy the source > code); but developing without a game is like developing without a test > suite... I don’t understand this. I regularly look at the sources of programmes I find interesting. Guix makes this very easy with guix build -S name You don’t have to compile and execute it to find source code useful. I also disagree with the second part of the last sentence. You don’t have to hack on the emulator, but you can hack on an existing free game or write your own. > expecting the user to evaluate if some game is free is making it > unnecessarily difficult to remain in freedom > making game packages/executables and not emulator packages/executables > would allow all know good uses and still signal the user to be > cautious with other games This limits the use of the emulator. You seem to think that an emulator is only useful as a runtime dependency for a game, but I and others in this thread disagree. ~~ Ricardo
