Re: Gentoo GNU/Linux and non-free packages

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

From what you've said, even with the license filter activated, Gentoo
GNU/Linux will still tantalize users with non-free programs they might
install.  That doesn't seem satisfactory.  Furthermore, use of the
license filter will be optional.  If a person goes look at the Gentoo
site with a view to installing it, unless he is already convinced that
proprietary software is bad, he won't use the license filter.  And
then Gentoo might lead him to install lots of non-free programs.

This is not what I developed GNU for.

    | Gentoo makes it easy to install a number of nonfree programs through
    | their primary package system.
    `----

    Well, that hardly qualifies as an still standing argument.  As soon as
    the new package manager version is stable, it's only a matter of what
    defaults the Gentoo devs choose as acceptable licenses.  I guess, they
    will choose only FSF and OSI approved licenses.

Are you saying that the Gentoo developers might soon delete all the
ports for non-free programs from Gentoo?  That could make it a 100%
free distro, and we might be able to endorse it.  (We would have to
check for blobs in their version of Linux.)

But that sounds too good to be true, so I suspect there is a
misunderstanding of some sort.  Perhaps you mean that the Gentoo
developers will decide not to install the nonfree programs on their
own machines.  That would be the right thing to do, for their own
freedom's sake.  But it would not alter the problem with Gentoo, which
is that it steers users towards nonfree programs.

Nonfree software is an injustice.  The aim of our work is to eliminate
that injustice.  We must never treat nonfree software as a solution,
because that would imply it isn't the problem.