Re: [gNewSense-users] Re: gNewSense group in launchpad

[Sam Geeraerts]

Chris Andrew wrote:
> The point I seem to be confused about, is that any distro is just a
> collection of packages.  These packages are all maintained by
> different people, not Ubuntu, Redhat, or whichever organisation.  If
> we report the bug to the package maintainer, then surely it benefits
> all GNU/Linux users, not just a specific distro.
>
> I seem to have made this wrong assumption before, so I'll shut-up, now.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris.

A distro is more than just a collection of packages. Distros also apply 
their own patches and develop their own software. So a package in 
gNewSense might differ significantly from the original software. Another 
problem that is more specific to gNewSense is that some upstream 
developers don't care that much about freedom or respecting the GPL as 
they should.

Take bug 31 for example: cdrecord.c had some anti-SUSE code that was 
incompatible with the GPL. The developer deliberately put that in there, 
so it's doubtful that this would have been solved upstream. Debian, 
however, did solve it (without introducing a new bug, unlike gNewSense) 
and Ubuntu probably would do as well if it had been reported there. So 
in general I think it's better to report directly upstream. The bug will 
land on the original developer's plate sooner or later.

> On 27/03/2008, Luis Alberto Guzmán García <address@hidden> wrote:
> > We have Builder, and have our own BTS, forum, page, IRC channel, and the
> >  community has release some good scripts to work freely.
> >
> >  Maybe after the next gNS release we could start the developing of a
> >  struture for the BTS, based on some free software for mannaging this
> >  issues.
> >
> >  After all that's the reason gNS was develop to take all the non-free
> >  blobs out of a rather popular distribution and makes it free. :D
> >
> >  I think is the best to end this polemical issue.
> >  Maybe not the esaiest one. :)

I don't think anyone was suggesting that the current BTS and other tools 
have to be replaced. Yavor's point was that some people use non-free 
software to work on gNewSense, in addition to the main tools, and do 
that in the name of gNewSense. This might hurt gNewSense's credibility 
as a purely libre software distro because it gives the impression that 
it's developers are not fully commited to freedom.

The question is then: should this happen with the blessing of the 
gNewSense community or does the community distance itself from that in 
order to prevent sending out the wrong message.

gNewSense is listed by GNU as one of the distros "which only include and 
only propose free software". This of course applies to software in the 
repositories, but does it also go beyond that? The FSF might not be keen 
on supporting a distro that uses non-free software for its development, 
even if that's just a small fraction of the tool set and the distro 
itself is completely libre.