Re: Replacement applications on nonfree systems

[David Hedlund]

On 2021-08-27 05:27, Richard Stallman wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > Thanks, I added "we don't review single-platform free software for
>   > proprietary operating systems.
>
> That is correct, but incomplete.  To be complete, it should say this:
>
>    We don't review free programs that don't run on GNU or GNU/Linux.
>
> If a program runs on two or more different nonfree platforms,
> we still do not review it.
>
> Even if it runs on BSD or Replicant, but not GNU or GNU/Linux, we
> still do not review it.  We don't disapprove of them morally, but we
> don't study them because that would be outside the scope of our
> activity.
>
>

I will add that. But first, should this text be modified in https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Free_Software_Directory:Requirements#Free_programs ?

• "The program must run under free GNU-like systems, but not limited to the GNU operating system and its free GNU/Linux distributions. If they don't currently run on GNU, at least it probably isn't hard to adapt them to run on GNU."

    to

• The program must run under  GNU or some of its free GNU/Linux distributions.

BSD is Unix-like. However, LibertyBSD is under evaluation (https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Incoming_distros). If it gets approved one day, should we extend the text to?:

• The program must run under  GNU or some of its free GNU/Linux distributions, or a free BSD operating sytem because probably isn't hard to adapt them to run on GNU.