Re: [GNU-linux-libre] emulators and other hosts of foreign applications

[Richard Stallman]

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  > > So if we come up with something clear and not ambiguous, the cost
  > > of arguing goes down significantly: distributions would just need to
  > > point users and contributors to a very clear justification that speak
  > > for itself.

  > +100

"Justification for including a package" is the wrong way to think
about this.  This is a matter of whether including a certain package
promotes the free software idea, or rather undermines it instead.

The point is to about judging whether including a certain free program
tends to do indirect harm that outweighs its direct good (which, in
cases like ScummVM, is very small).  This is not a matter of rigid
rules and "justifications".  It is a matter of weiging good and harm.

  > but for one caveat - the FSDG as it is, is extremely vague - so vague, that 
it
  > was apparently _intended_ to be imprecise

Yes, exactly!  I think what you mean is that some of its questions are
judgment calls, a matter of weighing one goal against another.

For instance, the issue of promoting use of some nonfree program
(which is not in the distro, of course!) vs encouraging the people who
already use that nonfree program to use some free software with it.
The former is harmful, the latter is desirable.

These have to be judgment calls.  To make them rigid rules would
make no sense -- rigid rules can't do these jobs.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)