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

[Sam Geeraerts]

On 1/11/2021 05:46, Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli wrote:
> Though I really like the idea of sharing the work between the
> distributions.
>
> The question would also be how to share it practically speaking.

Back when (2012) I was pretty active on the non-FSDG wiki page I asked 
myself that same question and shared some thoughts on the Talk page [1]. 
I often had the feeling that the wiki page was too Debian-based focussed 
and not technical/machine-readable enough.

[1] 
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines

> Or maybe we need to get there step by step?

Perhaps a first step that should be fairly easy for each distro is to 
make a list of all modified/deleted packages. Extract a list of common 
entries (might need some normalization). Ignore the differences for now, 
they can be discussed once the process is figured out. Edit the non-FSDG 
wiki page to match that list (title + package name to start, the other 
fields can be filled in later).

> In Parabola for instance if we have our deblob instructions in an
> mksource() function in the package definitions. But that content could
> also be moved to scripts to enable other distributions to reuse them.

Other distros probably have something similar (e.g. Trisquel's package 
helpers). The wiki entries could be enriched with a link to each 
distro's scripts.

I'm not thinking further ahead, the next step might present itself more 
readily when this is done. I think this would already help quite a bit 
with sharing between distros and with the verification of distros that 
want to apply for inclusion in the free distro list.

> As part of my work on Replicant 11 (which is funded by NLnet) I also
> need to find and remove nonfree software, and I was also pointed to
> automatic tools to detect licenses (ScanCode and Ruby Licensee) by
> someone working at the FSFE, and I want to try them.

There's also Fossology.

> I think that there is still a lot of subjectivity in some corner
> cases, but I completely agree with your conclusion as it would make no
> sense to decide that per-distribution or even per contributor.
>
> Instead having different people discuss the corner cases could help us
> come to better conclusions and we'd probably all learn in the process
> as well and become better at it.

Indeed. Hopefully, smoothing the collaboration process will help to 
learn from each other and align subjectivity when it arises.

My 2 cents.

Regards,
Sam