From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Craven Subject: Re: Leaving the guix project Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2017 21:20:05 +0100 Message-ID: References: <87pohuyc1f.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50339) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cmR1I-0003LJ-FI for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:20:15 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cmR1F-0006Qx-HD for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:20:12 -0500 Received: from mail-qk0-x234.google.com ([2607:f8b0:400d:c09::234]:34944) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cmR1F-0006NX-Dt for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:20:09 -0500 Received: by mail-qk0-x234.google.com with SMTP id v125so181245068qkh.2 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2017 12:20:07 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87pohuyc1f.fsf@gnu.org> 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: =?UTF-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: guix-devel Hi Ludo, > I knew I should have stayed on vacation! Hope you had a nice vacation :) > The goals haven=E2=80=99t changed since Day 1 though. I realize that. When I started using/contributing to guix I was not fully aware of what that meant. One important thing that has changed for me is that I no longer believe that not using binary firmware blobs is a better option in >every< case. The problem also became real when I actually started using guixsd on my devices and started considering putting it on other peoples devices - like my mother's and some other people I help with their IT problems from time to time. It is not uncommon for people to be scared into buying a new computer because "windows XP or Vista is no longer supported" by chrome or whatever. My goal is to allow people to be able to check their email and do some webbrowsing on their existing devices. Using guixsd should decrease my "support" effort not increase it. This requires that some basic features that users expect work - say chromium - with all the google SaaS features, and not require users to buy new devices. The less hardware guixsd supports the higher my risk. - An old printer doesn't work - the wifi card doesn't work - whatever else - is a risk for me. And while I think that the FSDG as it is written for the most part is a good ideal, it seems that often the "essential freedoms" are not the only important thing. This also affects other GNU projects. Examples would be gcc not being modular (creating the need for llvm) and emacs not supporting lldb. So in practice free software is not software that respects the essential freedoms, but has a much more narrow definition which involves unwritten laws no one can read or understand. Having grown up in an extremely religious environment I have difficulty accepting religious behavior. While philosophy guides decision making, to me the difference is when following a strict set of rules becomes more important than the goal and motivation behind them. I've found a new goal of porting rust to riscv and improving llvm support for riscv, with a whole load of new things to learn. The barrier to entry to the llvm project seems to be much lower than gcc. And since I'm learning a lot of "concepts" as I go a modular codebase is really important... David