[Trisquel-users] Concern about GNU/Linux becoming more proprietary

[xoma]

After Valve annouced the release of SteamOS I have been pretty concerned  
about GNU/Linux becoming more reliant on proprietary software.

SteamOS comes with proprietary nvidia drivers by default instead of nouveau  
and will probably ship with Catalyst in the future too.  I'm afraid that this  
could grow GNU/Linux's popularity but at the same time turn it into an almost  
proprietary operating system.  At this rate OEMs may start adopting free  
software but start adding proprietary junkware to it.  Think of it as how  
OEMs tend to add more junk to Windows then that would come with a default  
install from an official Microsoft CD/DVD.

We already have to deal with many annoying firmware blobs.  Fully free  
distros like Trisquel could have already been destroyed if nouveau were to  
add firmware blobs to their drivers and if Intel were to start blobbing up  
their graphics drivers too.

Can you imagine the same thing happening but at a userland level?  What if it  
became a trend that programs started depending on nonfree libraries?  Even  
the grow of licenses like BSD, MIT, and even putting programs into the public  
domain is dangerous.  I have seen people want to replace glibc because of the  
GPL so that proprietary software can run more easily.