Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[Jason Self]

bill-auger  wrote ..

> which leads me back to my last question to this list from yesterday -
> namely: "should a distro be grandfathered in all perpetuity once
> endorsed with no further scrutiny of their on-going practices?"

I don't think that this is intended.

One of the FSF's high priority projects is "Help GNU/Linux
distributions be committed to freedom."

In that entry on the high priority list one of the things that they
mention is to explore the list of free GNU/Linux distributions, and
contribute to them. Surely "contributions" could include checking them
for FSDG compliance, right?

And, their page about volunteering suggests people "volunteer as a
"Freedom Verifier" to check whether a given distribution contains only
free software, so it can be included on the list of free
distributions." Surely that's not just new ones to add right?

Anyway, a lack of reviewing currently-endorsed distros is probably
more due to a lack of people power than anything else. After all, look
at how hard it's been to handle the backlog.

> the proper thing to do in such cases is to report a freedom bug to 
> the distro - but what if they ignore it?[1]

One of the criteria is the FSDG is that the people behind the distro
be committed to correcting mistakes. If they ignore freedom bugs then
that does not seem very committed to me.

There has been precedent to remove distros over freedom problems.
Anyone remember Kongoni? Search for it in
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/www/www/distros/free-distros.html?view=log

But, the FSF can't do anything if they don't know about it right? I
think that this is probably at least one of the reasons for the GNU
Bucks program: To both encourage people to check for stuff and also
give the FSF a chance to monitor things.

And, giving people GNU Bucks as an encouragement to look at things
circles back to my earlier point that I don't think the intention is
to ignore distros once they're added.

https://www.gnu.org/help/gnu-bucks.en.html

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[bill-auger]

On 03/23/2018 03:23 PM, KRT Listmaster wrote:
> GNU would fail this same criterion if proposed today.  Just a thought.


great point - i think it gets right to the core of that somewhat vague
criteria - although indefinite, the intention is clearly to avoid
confusion - there is no reasonable confusion in the name "GNU is not
UINX" - that is very explicitly a disclaimer of any association -
similarly "Free-Slack is not Slackware" should be as acceptable as
"GNU"; whereas "Free-Slackware" could be easily mis-interpreted -
"Free-Slack" falls in the grey area between because "slack" is a common
short-hand or nickname for "slackware"

but i will add that, if taken to the extreme interpretation, the same is
true for *every* distro that ends with *nix and i dont think anyone is
confused that any of them actually *are* associated with UNIX or bell
labs, nor that they are even attempting to imply any such thing -
after-all, the FSF endorsed "musix" - the *ix in that name is surely not
arbitrary; but a tip of the hat to UNIX - and musix was not expected to
disclaim that: "musix is not a musical unix"

"GNU" could be more accurately presented as "GNU is not UNIX - (but it
is very much like UNIX)" - fully acknowledging their work *by name*; but
still with no reasonable confusion or implications of association - the
manor of presentation seems to be very important here; so im not so sure
if this criteria could be made to be both rigid and comprehensive



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[Ivan Zaigralin]

Yes yes. And to continue with examples and policy suggestions, the minimal 
length of forbidden substrings should probably be also set to something 
specific. Like 3 letters is probably too short, because given a nonfree 
project "ion", no one would be able to use names like "Motion" or "Lionheart". 
This all may sound like fun and jokes, but I believe these are serious 
concerns.

As I am writing this, I am informed that "Freenix" is approved for use :) This 
is fantastic news for us, and a perfect prelude to what I will say here. What 
is to stop a subjective name censor from rejecting "Freenix", for example, on 
the grounds that it's "too similar" to "Unix"? And at what point the censors 
will usurp this power to exercise de facto creative control over the 
distribution naming? This is essentially an unchecked veto power over the 
branding, and I think the best way to confront this problem is by making name 
rules completely objective. No system will be perfect with respect to 
*accuracy* when it comes to detecting *similarity*, so it makes sense to use a 
system which offers OK accuracy, while being perfectly fair and impossible to 
abuse from the position of power in the review process.

Once again, this is intended as a mild criticism of the existing process, 
which I personally think worked just fine up to now. I am just fearing that 
going forward will be wrought with peril, as the free software movement is 
picking up steam, and more distributions come into picture, each with its own 
individual issues and quirks. Unless the process is made more fair and more 
robust, there will inevitably be a build-up of resentment due to subjective 
name vetoes. And it won't even matter how well justified these vetoes will be, 
really, the trust in the process will start to erode, and it would be great to 
fix this issue before it even shows up on the radar.

On Friday, March 23, 2018 13:23:21 KRT Listmaster wrote:
> Disclaimer:  I find this a particularly interesting conversation, and I
> am posing genuine questions and thoughts that come to mind.  I am not
> trying to ruffle any feathers or step on any toes.  With that in mind...
> 
> On 03/23/2018 11:51 AM, Ivan Zaigralin wrote:
> > I'd like to register my dislike of the subjective approach to the name
> > similarity issue as well. Not that it doesn't work. I think it works OK,
> > because this is not a particularly big deal to begin with. FreeSlack
> > project, for example, has always been flexible in that respect, as in,
> > fully cooperative. But it would be better to have an objective criterion,
> > like for example:
> > 
> > Cannot use nonfree distro name or trademark as a substring in a free
> > distro
> > name.
> > 
> > A rule like this would prevent "Slackware Libre", but not "FreeSlack". But
> > more crucially, it would be fair, and no one would ever feel like an
> > individual reviewer at FSF is yanking their chain just for the fun of it.
> 
> There's a obvious limit to how far this goes.  If this general concept
> is pushed to it's logical extreme, then we'd have to drop the GNU-prefix
> from everything as well.  Because, doesn't the U stand for... Unix?
> 
> I started thinking about what a cool name for FreeSlack (which could be
> seen as a general term taken from project management theory [1]) would
> be if Freenix was rejected for some reason, and FXP wasn't accepted
> either.
> 
> A couple of joke names came to mind, and I finally settled on:
> 
> §NH - which stands for §NH is Not Hyperbola
> 
> and was my way of avoiding
> 
> §NS , short for §NS is Not Slackware
> 
> and, only then I started to wonder if the negation makes things okay.
> 
> and then it all clicked into place.
> 
> GNU would fail this same criterion if proposed today.  Just a thought.
> 
> ;-)
> 
> - krt
> 
> [1]
> https://www.coursera.org/learn/scope-time-management-cost/lecture/Gsh3x/free
> -slack
> 
> --
> This email account is used for list management only.
> https://strangetimes.observer/

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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[KRT Listmaster]

Disclaimer:  I find this a particularly interesting conversation, and I
am posing genuine questions and thoughts that come to mind.  I am not
trying to ruffle any feathers or step on any toes.  With that in mind...

On 03/23/2018 11:51 AM, Ivan Zaigralin wrote:
> I'd like to register my dislike of the subjective approach to the name 
> similarity issue as well. Not that it doesn't work. I think it works OK, 
> because this is not a particularly big deal to begin with. FreeSlack project, 
> for example, has always been flexible in that respect, as in, fully 
> cooperative. But it would be better to have an objective criterion, like for 
> example:
> 
> Cannot use nonfree distro name or trademark as a substring in a free distro 
> name.
> 
> A rule like this would prevent "Slackware Libre", but not "FreeSlack". But 
> more crucially, it would be fair, and no one would ever feel like an 
> individual reviewer at FSF is yanking their chain just for the fun of it. 
> 

There's a obvious limit to how far this goes.  If this general concept
is pushed to it's logical extreme, then we'd have to drop the GNU-prefix
from everything as well.  Because, doesn't the U stand for... Unix?

I started thinking about what a cool name for FreeSlack (which could be
seen as a general term taken from project management theory [1]) would
be if Freenix was rejected for some reason, and FXP wasn't accepted
either.

A couple of joke names came to mind, and I finally settled on:

§NH - which stands for §NH is Not Hyperbola

and was my way of avoiding

§NS , short for §NS is Not Slackware

and, only then I started to wonder if the negation makes things okay.

and then it all clicked into place.

GNU would fail this same criterion if proposed today.  Just a thought.

;-)

- krt

[1]
https://www.coursera.org/learn/scope-time-management-cost/lecture/Gsh3x/free-slack

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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[Ivan Zaigralin]

P.S. To clarify my personal & institutional bias, here at FreeSlack the 
consensus for the distro name is "Freenix" at the moment, so I don't have an 
ulterior motive in making these suggestions. 

On Friday, March 23, 2018 10:51:01 Ivan Zaigralin wrote:
> I'd like to register my dislike of the subjective approach to the name
> similarity issue as well. Not that it doesn't work. I think it works OK,
> because this is not a particularly big deal to begin with. FreeSlack
> project, for example, has always been flexible in that respect, as in,
> fully cooperative. But it would be better to have an objective criterion,
> like for example:
> 
> Cannot use nonfree distro name or trademark as a substring in a free distro
> name.
> 
> A rule like this would prevent "Slackware Libre", but not "FreeSlack". But
> more crucially, it would be fair, and no one would ever feel like an
> individual reviewer at FSF is yanking their chain just for the fun of it.
> 
> On Friday, March 23, 2018 13:36:59 bill-auger wrote:
> > as i understand, the final issue preventing free-slack from being
> > endorsed is the word "slack" in their name - which is in conflict with
> > the "no name confusion" criteria
> > 
> > so one other thing to point out for the sake of equality is that the
> > connochaetos website refers to the repos it hosts as "The slack-n-free
> > repo"
> > 
> > "free-slack"
> > "slack-n-free"
> > 
> > is it just me? - im not seeing a huge difference there - personally, my
> > opinion would be that neither are particularly offensive - "slack" is
> > not exactly "slackware" - just as i see no problem with the free-dora
> > repos hosted by FSFLA because "dora" is not "fedora" - although these
> > are all clearly intended to remind the reader that "this is the freed
> > version of that well-known one"
> > 
> > o/c these are not my rules to make; but please let us apply the same
> > rules equally to all

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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[Ivan Zaigralin]

I'd like to register my dislike of the subjective approach to the name 
similarity issue as well. Not that it doesn't work. I think it works OK, 
because this is not a particularly big deal to begin with. FreeSlack project, 
for example, has always been flexible in that respect, as in, fully 
cooperative. But it would be better to have an objective criterion, like for 
example:

Cannot use nonfree distro name or trademark as a substring in a free distro 
name.

A rule like this would prevent "Slackware Libre", but not "FreeSlack". But 
more crucially, it would be fair, and no one would ever feel like an 
individual reviewer at FSF is yanking their chain just for the fun of it. 

On Friday, March 23, 2018 13:36:59 bill-auger wrote:
> as i understand, the final issue preventing free-slack from being
> endorsed is the word "slack" in their name - which is in conflict with
> the "no name confusion" criteria
> 
> so one other thing to point out for the sake of equality is that the
> connochaetos website refers to the repos it hosts as "The slack-n-free repo"
> 
> "free-slack"
> "slack-n-free"
> 
> is it just me? - im not seeing a huge difference there - personally, my
> opinion would be that neither are particularly offensive - "slack" is
> not exactly "slackware" - just as i see no problem with the free-dora
> repos hosted by FSFLA because "dora" is not "fedora" - although these
> are all clearly intended to remind the reader that "this is the freed
> version of that well-known one"
> 
> o/c these are not my rules to make; but please let us apply the same
> rules equally to all

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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[bill-auger]

as i understand, the final issue preventing free-slack from being
endorsed is the word "slack" in their name - which is in conflict with
the "no name confusion" criteria

so one other thing to point out for the sake of equality is that the
connochaetos website refers to the repos it hosts as "The slack-n-free repo"

"free-slack"
"slack-n-free"

is it just me? - im not seeing a huge difference there - personally, my
opinion would be that neither are particularly offensive - "slack" is
not exactly "slackware" - just as i see no problem with the free-dora
repos hosted by FSFLA because "dora" is not "fedora" - although these
are all clearly intended to remind the reader that "this is the freed
version of that well-known one"

o/c these are not my rules to make; but please let us apply the same
rules equally to all



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[bill-auger]

On 03/23/2018 11:26 AM, KRT Listmaster wrote:
> That's a good point, thanks for pointing it out, it might indeed be
> worth removing.  Questions:  should this criterion be applied across the
> board?  How does this differ from say, the PureOS website having a
> link to the Purism website in the footer, which mentions plenty of
> non-free software, including a tutorial on how to enable their own
> non-free repo.  Just curious


all good questions - more than anything, i want to see *all* of the
rules applied equally across *all* software projects, large and small,
rich or poor, past present and future - what strikes me as notable here
is that (as i understand) the main gripe the FSF has with debian is not
so much that it hosts non-free repos (they are clearly isolated
after-all); but that they intentionally direct users to them and
instructs on how to use them on their website - ive looked over the
entire pureos website in the past and could find no explicit mention of
the non free repos; but if we are to make an issue of the website of
this prospective distro (free-slack) sporting external links to non-free
repos (or links to external sites on which are found links to non-free
repos) then we must, in all fairness, make issue of pureos linking to
the puri.sm website

which leads me back to my last question to this list from yesterday -
namely: "should a distro be grandfathered in all perpetuity once
endorsed with no further scrutiny of their on-going practices?" - the
proper thing to do in such cases is to report a freedom bug to the
distro - but what if they ignore it?[1]

as long as we are nit-picking about external links on distro's websites
- i also just noticed in the top-most navbar on the pureos front page an
icon of a tweeting bird that is a link to https://twitter.com/puri_sm -
so on the face of that one can say that pureos, rather than down-playing
the association with their commercial patron that hosts it's non-free
repos, instead guides users to it (at least indirectly) in multiple ways
- not problematic perhaps in itself, because the main distro site has no
explicit instruction how to use non-free repos; but as krt says the
commercial site does host non-free repos and instructs users on how to
access them

not to harp on that point - but i mention the tweeting bird because i
know that parabola for one, takes great care to remove all such
corporate logos rather than even hint at endorsing them - for example,
when firefox v57 was released and it was noticed that iceweasel v57
shown huge "quick-link" buttons with various website logos chosen by
mozilla on everyone's "new tab" page (of youtube, google, twitter, and
facebook IIRC) forcefully replacing where normally your pinned
"favorites" might be; this was reported as a bug the very same day and
those links were removed the same day - parabola would never knowingly
direct users to any website running non-free SAAS or that requires
non-free javascript to function; especially not intentionally on the
main page of the website - there is even an open ticket to remove the
"awesome" fonts package merely because it includes such logos[2] as glyphs

i just wanted to add that to underline that most of the FSDG distros do
seem to take very diligently to the task of avoiding to steer users in
the direction of proprietary software; but others seem to be very
cavalier about it - im not sure if parabola really needs to quite as
strict as they are; but i would very much like to see all FSDG distros
take some unified stance on such issues, whatever that stance may be -
that is why i hope the review guide page[3] will be used as a consensus
across distros on how to interpret the less defined caveats of the FSDG


[1]: https://tracker.pureos.net/T57
[2]: https://labs.parabola.nu/issues/1648
[3]: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/FSDG_Review_Guide



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Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[Ivan Zaigralin]

Thanks for pointing this out, we can definitely improve the presentation here.

A quick nitpick: we do not mention Bob's website in a positive way. We mention 
Slackware developers' and Bob's *efforts* in a positive way. To link a website 
is not the same as to endorse its entire contents.

I think we can all agree that mere url linking cannot be construed as an 
endorsement without a context to support that. In our case, the link from 

https://freeslack.net/

is a bit iffy in that it provides no context and can be misinterpreted as an 
endorsement. For this reason, and also because of the redundancy, I just 
removed that blurb completely.

On the wiki page, though,

https://freeslack.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

down below in Kudos section it says:

> This project could not have succeeded without the hard work of Slackware
> developers and the alien technology courtesy of Eric Hameleers. 

We have three links of interest on this front page: Slackware project front, 
Eric's folder with free+libre code we borrowed from, and Eric's personal blog. 
Here the context is clear: these are citations. These weblinks are just the 
means of specifying which exactly Slackware project, which Eric, and which 
free/libre upstream code we are referring to. These cannot and should not be 
construed as endorsements. To make things crystal clear we can add to the 
paragraph above an unequivocal un-endorsement of both entities (Slackware 
project and Bob personally), something along the lines of:

> While we do not endorse these upstream projects in any way,
> our project could not have succeeded without the hard work of Slackware
> developers and the alien technology courtesy of Eric Hameleers.

Please let us know your thoughts.

In response to KRT downthread, this kind of reasoning applies to any 
free/libre distribution derived from a nonfree one. It would indeed be a 
disservice to our users not to *cite* our software sources, especially since 
the upstream determines 99.9% of the technical characteristics of our 
distribution. It would also be extremely rude not to *credit* the upstream.

On Friday, March 23, 2018 09:12:54 Henry Jensen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just visited the website of freeslack and noted there is a link to
> Eric Hameleers website right on the front page. On his website he does
> prominently offer and links to several third-party packages, including
> complete proprietary software, such as Adobe Flash Player.
> 
> Since this website is mentioned in a positive way on freeslack.net
> one may be tempted to install this non-free software. I suggest to
> remove this link.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Henry
> 
> 
> 
> Am Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:34:11 -0700
> 
> schrieb Ivan Zaigralin :
> > A pretty good and very current summary of FreeSlack review process
> > can be found here:
> > 
> > 

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website

[KRT Listmaster]

On 03/23/2018 02:12 AM, Henry Jensen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just visited the website of freeslack and noted there is a link to
> Eric Hameleers website right on the front page. On his website he does
> prominently offer and links to several third-party packages, including
> complete proprietary software, such as Adobe Flash Player.
> 
> Since this website is mentioned in a positive way on freeslack.net
> one may be tempted to install this non-free software. I suggest to
> remove this link.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Henry
> 

That's a good point, thanks for pointing it out, it might indeed be
worth removing.  Questions:  should this criterion be applied across the
board?  How does this differ from say, the PureOS website[1] having a
link to the Purism website[2] in the footer, which mentions plenty of
non-free software, including a tutorial on how to enable their own
non-free repo[3].  Just curious

thanks,

- krt

[1] https://pureos.net/
[2] https://puri.sm/
[3]
https://puri.sm/posts/purism-patches-meltdown-and-spectre-variant-2-both-included-in-all-new-librem-laptops/


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[GNU-linux-libre] Freeslack website (was: what of the distros that have already asked for consideration or have been partially evaluated?)

[Henry Jensen]

Hi,

I just visited the website of freeslack and noted there is a link to
Eric Hameleers website right on the front page. On his website he does
prominently offer and links to several third-party packages, including
complete proprietary software, such as Adobe Flash Player.

Since this website is mentioned in a positive way on freeslack.net
one may be tempted to install this non-free software. I suggest to
remove this link.

Regards,

Henry



Am Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:34:11 -0700
schrieb Ivan Zaigralin :

> A pretty good and very current summary of FreeSlack review process
> can be found here:
> 
>