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

[bill-auger]

On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 13:55:47 +0200 Denis wrote:
> I don't feel comfortable at all with either stopping to record
> the distribution or to remove the requirement for running a fully free
> distribution.

i was not suggesting to remove the distro name data - that is
probably the most important information that users expect to see
(the concrete verification like "yes, someone actually uses this
hardware with trisquel")

because the distro name is only informational or a heiristic, i
was only suggesting these two proposals:

1) add an "other" option, for distros which are not white-listed
- it would not be problematic; but it would allow running a
libre kernel on arbitrary distros, and the result would be a
perfectly accurate "yes, it works with free software", which is
the only purpose of h-node - that "yes" or "no" is determined
exclusively by the kernel and module in use

there is now, no requirement for running a fully free
distribution - debian is not fully free distribution - any
report from a 'debian' system is only possibly fully free, and
is just as likely not to be - the same goes for pureos or any
other really - parabola users can install any third-party
packages or subscribe to third-party repos - IIRC, purism
provides non-free repos for pureos users, and purism computers
are shipped with the non-free repos enabled - im not certain if
that is true; but the distinction of a "fully-free" distro is
simply not reliable information to determine "yes, it works with
free software" - only a white-list of kernel modules could
determine that, somewhat conclusively


2) there is no need to list guix twice, only because some users
may be running diffferent kernels - the kernel already is a
distinct data field - so the schema already allows for any known
distro to use any known kernel - we would only need to add HURD
as a known kernel option; then any distro could report 'hurd' as
the kernel

so for example, a guix user running linux-libre would select
'guix' as the distro and 'linux-libre' as the kernel - anoher
guix user running HURD would select 'guix' as the distro and
'hurd' as the kernel - in both cases, there is no loss of
information - neither of those data points determine "yes, it
works with free software", unless the kernel is 'linux-libre'