From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ricardo Wurmus Subject: Re: Leaving the guix project Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:37:52 +0100 Message-ID: <87ino893j3.fsf@elephly.net> References: <87o9y29svy.fsf@igalia.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:56890) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1celXq-0005Lp-HF for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Feb 2017 11:38:07 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1celXn-0003OM-DI for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Feb 2017 11:38:06 -0500 Received: from sender-of-o51.zoho.com ([135.84.80.216]:21075) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1celXn-0003LL-6U for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Feb 2017 11:38:03 -0500 In-reply-to: List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: David Craven Cc: guix-devel David Craven writes: >> I think if you posit a free software project that works in the way you >> describe ("on its own"), it would work very much like Guile works >> right now. > > An operating system has to work on all hardware. Asking people to buy a > RYF approved device to run guixsd is no different than apple requiring you > to buy an apple computer to run mac os x. This is clearly hyperbole. There are many pieces of hardware that are not RYF certified and that work without firmware blobs. > The FSDG and GNU philosophy prevent me from offering any kind of help > and require me to do it hidden. It is no exaggeration to say that Guix makes it easy to build kernel variants. Guix also makes it easy for people to share their packages with others via “guix publish”. Users can opt to run non-free software either by building the packages themselves or by downloading substitutes from people they trust who offer them. However, as a project we don’t want to legitimise non-free software, so we won’t offer recipes to install it. We don’t look down on people who run non-free software (unless they force or persuade other people to use non-free software as well). I’m not a bad person when I run proprietary software; I’m the one harmed when using proprietary software. As a projet that distributes software we have a position in which we must make a decision based on morals, and our decision is not to treat proprietary software as a legitimate alternative. This decision is reflected in the policy not to use official project channels to promote the use of non-free software. “Promote” includes suggestions and instructions to build vanilla Linux (which includes more than 150MB of binary blobs) to use hardware that forces them to either use proprietary software or abandon the hardware. As an aside, I’d also like to point you to an interview[1] with Alexandre Oliva of Linux libre: Indeed, I became aware that some users have got the idea that blocking the loading of blobs is a feature. It's not; it's just a bug that's quite difficult to fix. The decision on whether or not to use a piece of software, be it Free or not, should belong to the users, and it's not our intent to make that difficult. What we don't want to do is to bait users into a trap, so our plan to address both issues above is to reinstate the requests, but using some form of hashing on the blob name so that, if you chose to install it, it will be found (by the kernel itself, or by a suitably modified hotplug script), but if you don't, it won't lead you to the trap. [1]: https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/blogs/lxo/2013-11-08-linux-libre-interview-by-bruce-byfield.en.html -- Ricardo GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6 2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC https://elephly.net