From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ricardo Wurmus Subject: Re: Leaving the guix project Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 14:02:46 +0100 Message-ID: <87fujbslf4.fsf@elephly.net> References: <87o9y29svy.fsf@igalia.com> <87ino893j3.fsf@elephly.net> 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]:55040) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cf4fH-0006aQ-5g for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 18 Feb 2017 08:03:04 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cf4fC-0006Ru-Bo for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 18 Feb 2017 08:03:03 -0500 Received: from sender-of-o51.zoho.com ([135.84.80.216]:21095) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cf4fC-0006Ri-2o for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 18 Feb 2017 08:02:58 -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: >> vanilla Linux (which includes more than 150MB of binary blobs) > > Can you provide a reference? I can’t find it any more (I think I saw it in an interview, but I cannot find the article any more) and it looks like I was quite wrong about this number. My apologies! It’s closer to a total of 6MB of blobs that come with the sources of vanilla Linux (as of 4.10-rc8, checked by comparing the uncompressed sources with a deblobbed version), most of which are in the “firmware” directory. Of course this doesn’t mean that it’s 6MB in every compiled binary. > I'm pretty sure the kernel developers care about free software too. I’m not so sure given how there’s no official mechanism for users to exclude blobs e.g. with a simple configuration flag. The defects of linux-libre which make it so that users have no choice whether to load or refuse to load a blob are also a consequence of the general lack of attention that kernel developers give to the issue of blobs. Accepting pre-built binaries as part of kernel sources (6MB is quite a lot of binary gibberish) is a strong indicator to me that at the very least their concern for free software is expressed very differently from mine. > But I'm not going to justify my actions any more. No need to justify anything. We’re just expressing different perspectives. -- Ricardo GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6 2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC https://elephly.net