Re: Why is it acceptable to have digital-ocean-configuration in the Guix?

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Jan 4, 2024 at 5:34 AM Tomas Volf <~@wolfsden.cz> wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> I would like to inquire regarding digital-ocean-configuration type used for
> provisioning DigitalOcean Droplets.  I do not understand why it is acceptable 
> to
> have this type in the source code.  Reading the Free GNU/Linux distributions
> criteria[0] I see this sentence (emphasis mine):
>
> > This means they will include, and *propose*, exclusively free software.
>
> As far as I know DigitalOcean Droplets are not free software (please correct 
> me
> if I am wrong).  I contemplated on this for a bit, and I do not understand why
> it is acceptable.
>
> Would someone be so kind to explain the reason to me?

Perhaps this will help explain why you can't simply call a web service
nonfree: 
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.en.html

To use a different example: Google doesn't publish the source code for
YouTube. Guix includes the free software yt-dlp program that can talk
to YouTube and download videos. Would you consider this a violation of
the FSDG?

Guix also downloads a lot of source code from GitHub. Is this an issue?

- Dave