Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Relationships with other distros and other things

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Sat, 29 May 2021 00:14:12 -0300
Adonay Felipe Nogueira via gnu-linux-libre <gnu-linux-libre@nongnu.org>
wrote:

> 1. Is there any work being done with distros that don't meet the FSDG
> but are still the base for those who do, in the sense that someday
> both projects can be merged into the older one and from that point on
> have the same resources (technology, structure, people,
> documentation, available people's time, willingness, oportunity and
> skill to help) ?
It depends on how you view or interpret things.

There are reasons why some distributions are not FSDG compliant. One
reason is that in some cases some hardware doesn't work with only free
software.

The fact that there are solutions that works right now with nonfree
software doesn't help in getting that nonfree code replaced by free
software in the first place.

However despite that some people still work to make hardware work
without nonfree software. The same applies to other things like file
formats and so on.

So in most cases, in GNU/Linux, to make non-FSDG distributions use free
replacements, you need to work to include them in upstream projects
and/or create an/or (co-)maintain an upstream project.

And since we don't have enough people working on things like that, we
didn't manage to replace all the nonfree software that is typically
shipped in nonfree distributions, so to workaround that we do our best
to make sure that FSDG distributions don't push users to run nonfree
software.

And here there is a direct conflict between the FSDG distributions
and the distributions that want to support nonfree software in some
form or another. You cannot do both at the same time.

So the best way in this case is really to have separate distributions
as otherwise you'll probably have constant fighting between people and
one group will have to leave anyway.

This however doesn't prevent both distributions to happily collaborate
on things when they can.

I work in Parabola but I also share some of it with Arch Linux and/or
its derivatives, for instance by maintaining some PKGBUILDs in Aur
which I also import in Parabola, by bugreporting when needed, etc.

In addition, FSDG is not reserved to GNU/Linux distributions.

With older versions of Android, you third party upstream project
weren't that relevant. 

Paul Kocialkowski, a former Replicant maintainer, upstreamed free
software support for the Galaxy SII (GT-I9100) audio directly in
CyanogenMod or LineageOS so that they could maintain it for us. 

So here everybody benefits too: they become a bit more free software
and we got some free maintenance for that code, without jeopardizing
the project.

Architecturing well collaboration is really important.

For instance, the free software Coreboot / Libreboot GPU driver for the
Thinkpad x60 was made possible thanks to work on the GPU driver of the
(first) Chromebook pixel which requires nonfree code to boot (the
Management Engine firmware). But in turn that chromebook also depended
on free code from Coreboot.

Without that collaboration we would probably not have Libreboot nor RYF
certified laptops today.

Denis.

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