Re: [H-source-users] [PATCH 6/6] Add Guix system with GNU/Hurd to the distro list

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Wed, 29 Jun 2022 11:32:19 -0400
bill-auger <bill-auger@peers.community> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jun 2022 05:17:23 +0200 Denis wrote:
> > So if users just install linux-libre on regular distributions, we'd
> > have a risk of having massive bogus data because there isn't only
> > the kenrel involved in making the hardware work.
> > And there is also the many drivers in userspace (many printer
> > drivers are probably nonfree as well for instance).  
> 
> but that risk is not unique to "regular distributions" - if the
> non-free software is loaded from user-space, then the results
> could not be trusted from any distro or kernel - FSDG distros
> can not prevent it and non0free distros do not especially permit
> it
> 
> if the firmware is loaded by some userland tool, that is just an
> edge case that can not be handled (because lspci/lsusb would not
> report that firmware) - the firmware is probably not even
> detectable in a general way; but that is regardless of which
> distro is used
Here I assume that users are not malicious because they can enter what
they want through the web interface anyway.

FSDG distributions usually don't ship nonfree software and run it, so
that can only happen (without the user knowledge) in the following
cases:
- Freedom bugs that are sometimes found and fixed: this can usually be
  tracked with commits and bug reports.
- Users installing nonfree software and forgetting about it: This is
  also less likely because in many cases it's not trivial to do.

With non-fsdg distributions it's way more likely.

> to me, all that the "Distro: other" would signify, is like a
> dubious "maybe" - my intention is not so much because non-free
> distros are an interesting source of information - it is mainly
> to relax the constraint, so that new distros (not yet FSDG
> endorsed) such as freenix, uruk, librazik could use h-client -
> if the "other" distro also had a free text field, the reader
> could use ones own judgment to decide how reliable the report is
>
> the alternative is more patches like this one, to explicitly
> white-list new and exotic distros and variants - ie: shall i make
> a patch for freenix, uruk, librazik? - i just dont think that
> the distro name is important information - i would rather
> generalize that concern once, and be done with it (maybe add
> patches like this one, only when the FSF endorses a new distro)
How would we decide to add such distribution? Would we need to review
the distribution ourselves? If we do that, could we simply take over
the validation of new distribution by volunteering to do that and then
add the distribution to h-source?

I also wonder what would happen if we have strange reports about intel
wifi working on these distributions. 

On Trisquel 10 for instance we can be pretty confident that it doesn't
ship nonfree firmwares, so it could either be a bogus report, or some
strange case that would be interesting to investigate.

Denis.

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