Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [PATCH] gnu: Add ungoogled-chromium.

[Julie Marchant]

On 02/04/2019 09:46 AM, Jean Louis wrote:
> Here are few references from GNU.org:
> https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html
> 
> QUOTE:
> 
> "Chrome implements DRM. So does Chromium, through
> nonfree software that is effectively part of it."
> 
> Thus such software cannot be included in free
> software system distributions.
> 
> Read more on the same page.

The bug report linked to seems to suggest to me that they fixed the
issue. But that's not really what I was talking about. I was talking
about the widespread rumor that there's a problem with Chromium's
licensing, which I have never seen a single shred of evidence for.

If the DRM is the only problem, then the solution isn't to purge it from
all GNU FSDG distros, it's to remove the DRM. But the legend that
persists is that Chromium would be non-libre anyway because there's no
proof that it *doesn't* have proprietary components. That is an
impossible standard. I'm sorry, but there's no proof that Firefox,
Linux, GNU Chess, GNOME, or any other piece of software has no
proprietary components. There is no way to prove it. If I claim that GNU
Chess has proprietary components, that burden of proof is on me, not
you. The same should apply to Chromium.

So just to recap, we have evidence that Chromium needs to be modified to
be libre, just like Firefox does. I accept that.

But if there are other problems in Chromium or the Blink engine, that
needs to be proven. We can't go just assuming a program is proprietary
because someone said it is a decade ago and we can't prove 100% that it
isn't.

-- 
Julie Marchant
http://onpon4.github.io

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