Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Talking about non-free software on the list

[Bob Ham]

On Fri, 2013-03-08 at 16:57 +0000, John wrote:

> It is hard to persuade people to 
> only use software listed by FSF which are based on Ubuntu which in turn 
> is based on Debian but not mention Debian because it mentions non free 
> software.

Inheriting the free software from a distribution doesn't necessarily
mean inheriting their attitude toward freedom, or their statements about
software, or their non-free software.


> To me a page that says Debian 
> cannot be recommended is equivalent to the Debian documentation 
> that says non free software does exist in the world.

The issue with Debian is not that they mention the existence of non-free
software in the world.  Mentioning the existence of non-free software is
not against the FSF's Guidelines.  Encouraging the use of non-free
software is.

Regardless, the main sticking point with Debian is that they provide a
repository of non-free software.


> It is hard to speak to people and persuade them that using a 
> distribution that does not just work with their hardware is a step to 
> giving them freedom.

Indeed it is difficult.  But this is our task :-)


-- 
Bob Ham <address@hidden>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }

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