Re: [gNewSense-users] RFC Firefox Free Software

[Karl Goetz]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> On 14/11/06, Andrew Wigglesworth <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 14 November 2006 22:28, Atanu Datta wrote:
> > > > But there are some real free software issues about Firefox.  The 
> > biggest
> > > > one is that it is set up to offer downloads of non-free plug-ins from
> > > > Mozilla's own site.
> >
> > This is the acid test isn't it?  If Firefox is not free, then we must not
> > distribute it.  Full stop; and that means the repositories.
>
> Well no, it is free, but it invites you to use non-free.
>
> This is the same issue as is being discussed in the WINE thread.

Wine allows you to run free, but not Linux compat. software. are there 
any free plugins for Firefox? afaik not, but I'm open to being wrong. if 
there's no free plugins, its not the same issue.

> I think that gNewSense should NOT carry software that invites
> non-free, like WINE and ndiswrapper and vanilla Firefox (even if its
> renamed) - if people are in these unlikely fringe cases where they
> want to run a GPL program that has no native GNU+Linux version, then
> they are going to know enough to install WINE themselves.

I was thinking about this earlier, and what i came up with was roughly this:

Until GNS has enough developer manpower, all arguments about this stuff 
are moot, because its hard to implement things.
When GNS has the person power, I'd support something similar to contrib 
on Debian - software that's free, but could be used for non-free purpose 
(I'm thinking wine here) could go in there. things like ndiswrapper (and 
firefox's 'let me download plugins!!') would still be out, because they 
are /only/ to run non-free software.

> The WHOLE POINT of gNewSense is that it is for a 100% Free computer.
> People who want to compromise their freedom will be much better served
> by distros with repositories called 'non-free' and 'restricted'.

agreed.

> I imagine that when Ubuntu assimilate Debian's repositories, they move
> "contrib" into "Universe". This means that in the great gNewSense

I suspect this is correct

> repository clean-up, after removing anything with a freedom-related
> bug mentioned in Debians bugtracker, most of whats in contrib should
> also be removed.

quite posably.
kk

PS.
perhaps we should get gns added to the spell dictionaries ;)
kk

--
Karl Goetz
User of gNewSense: Free as in Freedom - http://www.gnewsense.org
Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam