Re: wrapping up the Newmoon Browser package

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

Hi swedebugia,

swedebugia <swedebugia@riseup.net> writes:

>> Can you find evidence that
>> Pale Moon has made such a commitment for their add-ons repository?
> 
> I did not find any such statements. I did find non-free addons though. 
> E.g. FireShot listed here: 
> https://addons.palemoon.org/extensions/tools-and-utilities/
> 
> It took some time to find a non-free one, so I guess they are rare like 
> 1% of the total or less.

Thanks for looking into it.  The Guix project is committed to following
the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG).  This includes a
commitment to not refer to third-party repositories except those
committed to including only free software.  Therefore, given your
findings, a prerequisite to including Pale Moon/Newmoon in Guix would be
to modify it so that it does not steer users toward addons.palemoon.org,
and never suggests installing nonfree plugins, etc.

The GNU FSDG states:

    A free system distribution must not steer users towards obtaining
    any nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do
    so.  The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and
    no specific recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs.
    Nor should the distribution refer to third-party repositories that
    are not committed to only including free software; even if they only
    have free software today, that may not be true tomorrow.  Programs
    in the system should not suggest installing nonfree plugins,
    documentation, and so on.

    For instance, a free system distribution must not contain browsers
    that implement EME, the browser functionality designed to load DRM
    modules.

https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

     Regards,
       Mark