Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Talking about non-free software on the list (was: Any folks in Manchester interested in participating in an Ubuntu Global Jam event if I were to organise one?)

[Dave Page]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 03:18:55PM +0000, Simon Ward wrote:

> I think this intent to be free software is key, and why I am prepared
> to give Debian some leeway.  It is also nice to know that people
> within Debian are actively working towards resolving the remaining
> issues.

Indeed. To me, Debian's strength is in seeing non-free software as a bug
to be fixed. An awful lot of not-explicitly-free code in Linux which the
FSF-approved distros simply ripped out, is now explicitly free thanks to
Debian's kernel team (among others) approaching the copyright holders,
explaining the problem and asking them to relicense under something
explicitly free. Where a copyright holder has said they won't clarify
and free the code, Debian have removed it. That work has benefitted the
FSF-approved distributions who can now include that code in their own
kernels.

There is also the seperate matter of non-free firmware. Firmware isn't
code that runs as part of the kernel or operating system; it's run on
microcontrollers on peripheral devices which interact with the kernel
and OS through well-defined interfaces. Before it was common to have
firmware loaded from disk to the peripheral, the firmware simply lived
in flash-type storage on the device itself.

Whether the firmware is stored on the device or on disk while the
machine is powered off doesn't affect whether it's free or not. I'm not
personally convinced that it's morally worse to use a peripheral which
has non-free firmware loaded at boot time from disk, than one which has
non-free firmware stored locally - yet one of these is forbidden by
FSF-approved distributions and one is accepted.

So while I'm prepared to accept that Debian isn't approved by the FSF, I
also accept that they're using criteria for freedom which don't make
sense to me. I'm personally happy to describe Debian (without the
non-free repository) as a "free software" distribution, if not an
"FSF-approved" one. Given e.g. the GFDL invariant section debate, it's
clear that the FSF aren't always right when it comes to arbitrating
matters of freedom ;)

Unfortunately I don't think that helps clarify Simon's point at all :/

Dave
-- 
Dave Page <address@hidden>
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