Re: [gNewSense-users] The difference between Debian and gNewSense?

[Karl Goetz]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was recently advocating Free Software in my local Freecycle [0]
> forum and was asked,
>
> > So what are the versions that are 100% free then?
>
> This is what I wrote:
>
> -- 8< --
>
> The Debian GNU/Linux system is 100% free, and has a "social contract"
> that is a formal commitment to this:
Its not actually - it has binary firmware in the kernel. In violation of 
the DFSG. (and some questionable licences in main)
> http://www.debian.org/social_contract
>
> However, The Debian project shares non-free software that can be used
> in the Debian system, but that software is not part of the official
> system and is not essential. 
trim
> Ubuntu is based on Debian, and includes the latest versions of popular
> Free Software, and some non-free software that makes more computer
> hardware work. Ubuntu feel its better to have more computers work,
> even though those computers will not run 100% Free Software.
Trim
> But the GNU Project itself cannot recommend such versions. They
> maintain a list at
>
> http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html#FreeGNULinuxDistributions
>
> and actually a significant event happened yesterday!
>
> A new version, based on Ubuntu, that is 100% Free Software, has been 
> released:
>
> http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense
>
> -- 8< --
>
> While writing this, I wondered if there a difference between Debian
> and gNewSense?
Yes, gNS is much smaller ;)
And has no non-free firmware in the kernel.
> Since gNewSense uses Ubuntu repositories, it is trivial to enable
> restricted and multiverse, and apt-get non-free software.
DeltaD (gNS 1.0) is binary compatible with Dapper (6.06). This wont 
necessarily continue.
> I believe this is the same as Debian, which does not include contrib
> or non-free by default, and they must be enabled to apt-get non-free
> software.
gNS doesnt even have these repositories
> Also, I wonder if by being a derivative of Ubuntu rather than Debian,
> there is an association with Canonical's proprietary web applications.
> Such an association may lead gNewSense users to use those proprietary
> systems. I believe Debian uses Free web applications to organise
> itself.
No, gNS uses FSF hardware for building, and the wiki is used for bug 
tracking.
> However, I have experienced practical benefits of Ubuntu over Debian -
> in terms of hardware detection, and in terms of prettyness (As Mark
> Shuttleworth is fond of saying, "Pretty Is A Feature" [1]) - and so
> can understand why creating a 100% downstream of Ubuntu is worthwhile.
hardware support is a, er feature(?) of binary 'things'.
Its not particularly free though.
kk

> But I figure its only a matter of time until Debian sorts this out.
> When it does, will there be a difference between Debian and gNewSense?
Yes, debian supporst (at this moment in time) 11 times the architectures 
that gNS does, and has about 11 thousand times the maintainers ;)
kk

> [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freecycle_Network
> [1]: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/63


--
Karl Goetz
The buck stops there -> $
Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam