Re: [gNewSense-users] (no subject)

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

On Monday 20 November 2006 00:54, Brian Kemp wrote:
> > But there are some real free software issues about Firefox.  The
> > biggest one is that it is set up to offer downloads of non-free
> > plug-ins from Mozilla's own site.
> > What do we want to do about this?
>
> My 2 cents:  Not much.
>
> If we could warn people that might be nice.  But don't block them,
> otherwise we just trampled all over Freedom 0.
>
> It'd be nice if MoFo put something about the license for a plugin on
> their plugins page, but I do not think it'll happen.
>
> We could alternately run our own plugins repository, perhaps with the
> help of Debian and GNU/FSF and anyone else planning to use Iceweasel.
> That would require some coordination but it might just be the best.
>
> Just because everything about gNewSense is going to be
> free-as-in-freedom doesn't mean it's going to be used that way. (Lots
> of folk on the Ubuntu forums run those non-free installer programs on
> first boot. I am not one of them.)  It doesn't make sense for a distro
> that's advertising its freeness, but the programs can be used for any
> purpose.
>
> (Sorry for the late hit.  I'm Broam on IRC, and I'm going to be
> working with Karl Goetz on licensing. Oh, and I'm a real cynic, but
> you got that much already.  And I'm really, really glad to be here.)
>


Actually, it's got nothing to do with freedom 0.  That is the freedom to run a 
programme for any purpose, not an obligation to supply a programme that runs 
in any particular way.


The point is that gNewSense should be promoting free software, and not 
supplying software that promotes non-free software.  That's very different to 
putting restrictions on anybody who wants to re-write the code to make things 
run differently.


-- 
Andrew







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