Re: software distribution criteria -- The OpenBSD case

[Davi Leal]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> > OpenBSD do not ship any non-free stuff, or have it on ftp mirrors,
> > or have packages. All non-free stuff have is ports.
>
> The ports system in a BSD distribution is a centrally maintained part
> of the distribution.  For instance, the ports system of OpenBSD comes
> with OpenBSD, and the developers of OpenBSD decide which packages to
> include in it.  They explicitly put some non-free programs into the
> ports system, which is why those non-free programs are included.
>
> > Let me know if we can tag OpenBSD as a free software distribution.
>
> No, you can't.
>
> The same is true of all three variants of BSD.  None of them can be
> treated as a free system.  It is sad that they come so close to
> qualifying, and yet fall just a little short.

Now, I personally agree with you.


I have checked with some OpenBSD developers.  It seams they work hard to do 
not include non-free software BLOBs in the kernel, but as you write they 
provide for easy installation of non-free software through the ports system.

It seems a philosophical contradiction.  I would name it _an addiction_ to 
some non-free software products. For example, some of such developers suffer 
an addiction to the Opera browser, as I myself suffer one to the Debian 
software distribution.



> *********************************************************************
> However, if someone offers a sysadmin job for a free installation of a
> BSD or GNU/Linux system, we can list that job, even if the
> installation was made using a distro which includes non-free programs.

We could add a new  'Almost-Free' tag,  and allow entries tagged so be exposed 
to the public in offers and resumes.

The 'Almost-Free' tag could be applied only to software distributions, not to 
programs, protocols, etc.



List of tags and classification examples:

    'Abstract'        Firewalls, Embedded Development, etc.

    'Free'            C++, gNewSense, PHP, Ruby, etc.

    'Almost-Free'     OpenBSD, Debian, FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc.

    'Non-Free'        Microsoft Windows, etc.


Note that anything tagged as 'Non-Free' is not exposed to the public.