[GNU-linux-libre] Checklist for verifying free distros - first version

[Brett Smith]

Hi everyone,

Now that we've gone through this process a few times, and after some
friendly prodding from Ruben ;), I've gone ahead and written down
practical checks that we can make to see whether a new distribution is
doing what it ought to do to comply with the Free System Distribution
Guidelines.  It's up on the LibrePlanet wiki at
<http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Free_System_Distribution_Checklist>.

Like the page says, these checks do not *ensure* that a distribution is
following the guidelines.  I don't think it's possible to make such
checks.  Instead, these are focused on seeing whether a distribution has
avoided all the common pitfalls.  The goal here is not to document every
little corner case way that developers can go astray; just a list of
checks that are definitely worthwhile to make before a distribution is
added to our list.

All that's on the page right now is what I could come up with after a
thread between RMS, Ruben, and myself, so surely it's incomplete.  If
you're interested, please take a look at it and suggest additional
checks that would be helpful to have -- whether here, on the discussion
page, or even directly in the wiki.  Right now I plan to revisit it next
week and compile any new material together.

Some of the stuff listed on here could be done a lot more easily if we
had small tools to help.  If you've got an itch to work on a brief
project, you can probably find some good ideas in there...

As always, if you have any kind of feedback about this, please don't
hesitate to share.

Best regards,

-- 
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation