El 16/12/10 11:12, Henry Jensen dijo:
Thanks for your work. As I see it the main difference between the Squeeze kernel and Linux-Libre is the ability to load non-free firmware and as such the very mentioning of non-free firmware files in the soruce code.
The Squeeze kernel is still able to load non-free firmware, but it's not delivered in the main repository (it is in the non-free repo, AFAIK).
Linux-Libre isn't able to load non-free firmware, even if you obtain the non-free firmware files somehow.
So, it's a matter of attitude. Do we give the user the opportunity to use non-free software if he wishes to do so, despite the recommendations, or do we prevent it proactively?
For example, GNU Icecat doesn't suggest non-free plugins. But Icecat is still able to load non-free plugins, it is not prevented proactively. Of course, the main difference is, that non-free software isn't mentioned in the Icecat source code (at least I assume so, I didn't check), where non-free software is explicitly mentioned hard-coded in the source code, so the situation is only slightly comparable.
Giving the user the ability to use non-free software without any comment leads to a situation where unexperienced users might be not knowing what they are doing. For example Debian help forums are full of advices for novice users to activate the non-free repository. Same goes for Fedora where novice users are encouraged in forums to integrate non-official repositories with non-free software.
To proactively prevent the use of non-free software on the other hand is censorship. I recall RMS pointing out in an interview that any free operating system should allow to do anything. I CC him, maybe he has some thoughts to add.
Kind regards,
Henry
On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:56:07 -0800 (PST) "Jason Self" <[email protected]> wrote:
In light of Debian's recent announcement [1] I and others were interested in how well the Debian folks cleaned up their kernel. I proceeded to grab the source for the Squeeze kernel, ran the linux-libre deblobbing script on it, and then diffed it against the original to see what had changed.
The full deblob log [2] & diff [3] is available to anyone that's interested in knowing.
[1] http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215 [2] http://aws.bluehome.net/squeeze_kernel_deblog_log.txt [3] http://aws.bluehome.net/squeeze_kernel_diff.txt
I recall this discussion had place a year ago between linux-libre and ututo (I mean between people behind those projects), where your same arguments were used. And IIRC, finally there was a note in the linux-libre site saying that loading nonfree firmware isn't banned anymore. Haven't tested it though, and I can't seem to find it... I'm CCing the lists where the discussion had place. -- Salud! Nicolás Reynolds, xmpp:[email protected] omb:http://identi.ca/fauno blog:http://selfdandi.com.ar/ gnu/linux user #455044 http://librecultivo.org.ar http://parabolagnulinux.org