[gNewSense-users] Re: Wikipedia

[Yavor Doganov]

Guy Johnston wrote:
> 
> I've also changed the bit about non-free repositories. 

I don't know exactly what you changed, but I'd like to comment on what
you wrote.  That said, my reply may not be relevant to what you did.
My apologies if that's the case.

> Before, it gave the impression that it's not possible to use any
> non-free respositories with gNewSense, even if you want to.  That
> fuels the criticism that some people have of gNewSense, that we're
> "taking away people's freedom" somehow.  

This is the equivalent to the question "I want to be a slave, it is my
freedom to choose so".  Can you be a slave in the trivial meaning of
the word in a modern society?  Would it be allowed by the society to
be whipped and treated like a slave even if it's your choice?  I think
that such a social status is prohibited because it's anti-human and
antisocial.  

I don't think that gNewSense, as a distribution, must make extra
effort not to be possible to install non-free software.  But it should
not make extra effort not to BREAK the users' systems that have
non-free software installed.  That's what most of the other GNU/Linux
distros do -- they refrain from changes that might badly affect
non-free software users or take care to add "Conflicts:" (or the
equivalent of it) to reduce the harm these users could suffer.  This
is unacceptable for an ethical free software distribution.

Currently, both points are moot, as there are no official gNewSense
packages being developed.

> Obviously that's unfounded, 

What is unfounded is the fundamental approach to the question.  We
should strive to defeat the widely-spread sickness rather than
providing a short-term "vaccine" that doesn't cure anything, just
makes us look more acceptable.