Re: Question of Aiding and Abetting Proprietary (or non-free) Software in GNU projects

[Andrew Yu]

Hey Greg, I really disagree on this issue ...

It is really easy, when a user requests for help using nonfree drivers
in Guix, to warn them about the dangers.  This ensures that users are
indeed informed, and would seek hardware that works well with fully free
software in the future if they care (well, if we can't make them care
there isn't much we can do in any case).

Users generally need a soft transition.  Although in the best case we
would expressly and directly get a user to switch to something fully
free, many are incapable of transitioning at such immediacy.  Many
people's jobs require nonfree software, and "get a better job" and/or
activism against such requirements, though nice, are hard and take a lot
of effort.  Before these are met, it is much better for the user to be
on a mostly free system with minimal nonfree software than a mostly
nonfree system with minimal free software.  The same goes for firmware,
though finding hardware that works well with free software is indeed
generally easier than getting rid of bad work/government requirements.
In any case, using nonfree software/firmware on an otherwise free system
is in my opinion much preferred to using a nonfree system.

Although, I believe that "Emacs on Windows" and "Nonfree firmware in
Guix" should indeed be treated similarly and be kept sepeate from the
core community as it's not our core mission.

-a (stealing greg-style signatures)

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