Re: [GNU-linux-libre] is this work-group still serving the community?

[Jean Louis]

* Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org> [2021-10-05 18:08]:
> So given how imperfect is human communication, it's logical to expect
> that some issues will arise, and the question would rather be how to
> fix it so everything worth smoothly.

It would be beneficial that freedom issues are tracked centrally from
the FSDG website or group of pages and then that issues are
distributed to distributions. This way distributions could coordinate
better. Some issues should be FSDG related and considered very
important, while other could be on sole discretion of distribution
managers, such as inclusion of vendor lock-in software such as
Telegram; as opinions vary between distribution managers.

> For projects like Guix for instance, it could probably be improved by
> making sure that new contributors, especially people that never heard
> of the FSDG before, do not miss that information.

That is what I mean when I said that distribution have various
purposes, some are philosophically oriented towards free software,
some are by interest, some are oriented by popularity and other
usages, or simply gain from FSF recognition (not necessarily directly
contribute to free software philosophy).

> There is not only that to consider but also how strategic are the FSDG:
> if we want free software to scale, things must be as simple as possible
> for users. And if we have too much norms, it would prevent that.

Coordinating distributions would useful. 

Especially it would be useful for FSF/GNU to maintain parsable list of
software packages that are well known to be free, categorized, that
distributions can automate and ease the creation of new
distribution. This could include the freedom problematic packages and
notices. 

> In general we need to find ways to work more together to improve the
> situation, but we also need to make sure that norms like the FSDG and
> the RYF certification work well.

When I mentioned purposes, that I consider very important. 

You may maybe see how Linux as kernel pushed the purpose of being
opportunistic and included various non-free blobs over the years, many
people were thinking that it is free software while it was not. What a
global deception! The purpose to be opportunistic and consider
software rather gratis, instead of free deviated so many Linux kernel
based distributions from being truly free to being rather
opportunistic distributions, such as Arch Linux.

To clarify what I mean with "opportunistic", straight from Wordnet
dictionary:

* Overview of adj opportunistic

The adj opportunistic has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) opportunist, opportunistic, timeserving -- (taking immediate advantage, 
often unethically, of any circumstance of possible benefit)

Debian has nicely defined purposes, but still leans to opportunistic
approach and includes non-free, pays for distribution of non-free
software.



-- 
Jean

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