Re: Packaging a free Firefox

[Pjotr Prins]

On Sun, May 06, 2018 at 11:48:28AM +0200, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
> Am 06.05.2018 um 03:24 schrieb Mike Gerwitz:
> > On Sat, May 05, 2018 at 19:06:27 -0300, Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:
> >> I have noticed somepeople advocating for packaging Firefox in GNU Guix,
> >> and since FF still has freedom issues, I see it as a no-go.
> > A simple option for now is to package FF by disabling those features and
> > _not_ providing an alternative.  For example, IceCat loads a different
> > addon page than FF; we could just load no addon page at all, or a static
> > one saying that it's something'll we'll get to eventually.
> 
> Not packaging FF or crippling FF is a no-go! Doing so will discourage
> users from using GuixSD and Free Software.

That is an interesting one. GNU Guix, by virtue of it being a GNU
project needs to abide by GNU free software terms. But even among core
project members there are variations in thought in how to compromise
with user requirements. A package manager that does not target user
needs is a shitty package manager. This is one reason I champion the
concept of channels:

guix channel firefox http://some-origin/guix-channels/firefox
guix package -i firefox

so we can make GNU Guix as pure as possible and leverage less pure
concepts (such as Firefox and Conda) into something that is not
considered part of the core project. I think it would also render
other maintenance benefits, for example versioning of old software
would become much easier.

guix channel ruby-1.8 http://some-origin/guix-channels/ruby-1.8
guix package -i ruby

I hope we get something like this at some point.

Pj.