Re: FSDG status of chromium

[bill-auger]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:08:42 +0200 Marius wrote:
> Can you elaborate on what exactly the issue is?  I am aware that
> Chromium bundles non-free sources
> That leaves "first party" source files.  Admittedly I haven't audited
> all of those other than superficial grepping.  Do you know whether
> parts of Chromium are considered non-free?

no - and that is exactly the core problem - AFAIK no person on this
planet knows the definitive answer to that question, including the
upstream developers themselves, as demonstrated by the 10 year old bug
report that was never closed

all i have to say about chromium specifically is that, if this program
is so massive that even its developers can not determine whether or not
it is 100% freely distributable, then the sheer size of this behemoth
is a better reason to avoid it than any fuzzy licensing concerns

to answer your question specifically, "Do you know whether parts of
Chromium are considered non-free?"; my answer is: "yes absolutely" -
the main point i was trying to get across in the OP, is that all
software should be considered to be non-free until it is convincingly
demonstrated to be otherwise - it's developers have not been able to do
that in 10 years - perhaps they dont care so much about the issue, i
dunno, but even that would be no justification to let it slide past the
FSDG


On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:08:42 +0200 Marius wrote:
> I noticed a number of
> files are missing license information: in those cases I have assumed
> that the top-level "LICENSE" file (BSD-3) applies.

i dont think that is a reasonable assumption to make - by that logic,
you could assemble any collection of unlicensed or conflictingly
licensed source code projects, heap them all in a tarball with a
single BSD-3 license at the root level, and that would somehow make
everything adequately licensed, simply because none of the files within
contradict that otherwise unfounded assumption - the unfortunately
broad and brief wording of permissive licenses (no more precise
than "this software") encourage that lazy assumption to be made as
applying to "everything in this tarball", probably more often than
people realize


On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:08:42 +0200 Marius wrote:
> It seems to me using "Ungoogled-Chromium" remediates Lukes concerns

yes most people agree that the ungoogled patches would be necessary
but not sufficient for any FSDG compliant build of chromium


On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:08:42 +0200 Marius wrote:
> Andreas Enge <address@hidden> writes:
> > So at least it is apparently possible to get a working binary with
> > only free sources.  
> 
> To clarify: the few files flagged by 'checklicenses.py' are as far as
> I can tell all free software.  The script just fails to classify them
> 379 files for which it fails to detect license.

to be clear here, what is truly meant there by: "only free sources" is
"with only sources that have not yet been demonstrated to be non-free" -
that is the key distinction - just because they have not yet been
proven to be non-free, does not make them free - and i have yet to see
anyone make that determination convincingly


On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:08:42 +0200 Marius wrote:
> All non-essential "third_party" directories are purged in the same
> manner.  I have audited the remaining third_party files and AFAICT
> they are free software.

adfeno recently did a some preliminary digging into this also[1] -
maybe you and he could compare notes ad/or combine efforts


On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:36:45 +0200 Clément wrote:
> I hope we'll
> make it free at some point, so that it can be integrated into Guix.

to these i again want to underline the secondary point i hoped to make;
that is if *anyone* can liberate this program, it would allow this
browser and dozens of derivative programs that are currently
blacklisted to be included in guix AND also *any* of the FSDG distros -
what bothers me most about this situation here, is that no one from guix
seems to be "on the same page" sharing information and effort with the
other FSDG distros - i really do encourage you guys to join in on these
conversations that pertain equally across all FSDG distros[1] - if you
have some success liberating chromium, or have determined any of its
dubious licensing concerns, please do make it known on that mailing
list - it would be of great interest to many outside of guix - at the
very least it could lead to the recommended fix for chromium on the
"does not respect the FSDG" list to be changed from "use icecat
instead" to "this browser can be used in freedom if you ...."


[1]: https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Talk:Chromium
[2]: https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-linux-libre