Re: proposal to remove linux-Libre from Guix

[ng0@n0.is]

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice transcribed 1.2K bytes:
> Quiliro Ordonez wrote:
> > El 2019-03-28 21:38, Ricardo Wurmus escribió:
> > > All this for merely giving people a reason to stop using the term
> > > “Linux
> > > distribution”?
> > 
> > No. It is for helping people value the project and thus consider freedom
> > more valueable than any other feature.
> 
> Switching from a GPL'ed to a *less* free (BSD-licenced) kernel would be a
> huge step backwards for such people (of which I am one).
> 
> > > PS: in case this was meant as a joke: it’s hard to be sure on this
> > > Internet of ours :)
> > 
> > It is not a joke. But wouldn't it be a good one for April 1st?
> 
> Only if you provide a working patch porting Guix to FreeBSD, in the spirit
> of Marius's systemd effort ;-)
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> T G-R

I have spend some time looking into this when I was restructuring guix.
There are legal implications which should not be overlooked (Gentoo had
a BSD based kernel option for a while and discontinued it for as far as
I could gather legal reasons.. the code on how to do it from source is
still out there though).
In my personal opinion it is nonsense. I haven't read about kFreeBSD in
a while, but even if it were considered, FreeBSD is more than its kernel.
You are most likely to hit a boatload of technical issues (Linux compat
in FreeBSD is quiet good, the other way around is let's say technically
stalled but the option is there to add it back).
And the 4.3BSD-derived Operating Systems are full operating systems.
Unlike Hurd or Linux they do not easily provide just a kernel (the
closest to "just a kernel" is NetBSD rumpkernel). It would be a mistake
to distributize them. Even more just for a social hack.


PS: My request for the last step towards starting to port Guix to NetBSD
    still stands (Guile bindings of GnuTLS) ;)