Re: software distribution criteria -- The OpenBSD case

[John Darrington]

On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 10:21:49AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:

     - gNewSense will include non-free-software material that Debian won't
     (FDL-with-invariants and some badgeware), so Debian is freer by design
     in that way,

First of all are you sure of your facts?  So far as I'm aware, there
are no FDL-with-invariants manuals currently in gNewSense.  Whether
they will accept them, I've not seen any authoritative answer.  The
whole FDL issue is unfortunate, but so long as there are no
FDL-with-invariants in GNS, we all agree it's Free, so let's not start
an argument where we're all in agreement.  I'm not exactly sure what
you mean by "badgeware".
     
     - Debian is producing a GNU/Hurd version that gNewSense doesn't, so
     Debian is freer by design in that way,

I don't think that GNS has been designed NOT to include a Hurd
version, it's just that that hasn't been a proirity to them.
     
     - gNewSense pretends the non-free archives it can use (including
     restricted / Multiverse) do not exist, even though it is easy to find
     out how to use them, while the Debian project tracks some non-free
     packages, particularly when trying to prepare for relicensing as free
     software, so gNewSense is slightly freer for developers and organisers
     in that way, but there's little difference for most users - if they
     want to add automatically-installable non-free software, it's there
     ready-to-go.

You're being silly here.  Refusing to advertise a product is not
"pretending that it doesn't exist".  You might as well say that Debian
pretends that MS windows doesn't exist.

I think it's entirely appropriate that a Free software project avoids
giving publicity to non-free software.  Doing otherwise is
incompatible with its very objective.

J'

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