[GNU-linux-libre] Re: Freedom issues with non-free firmware in external files

[Yavor Doganov]

Daniel Olivera wrote:
> Our job may be clear about this "line".
> Packages with 4 freedoms may be included, work or not, experimental
> or not.

So, if someone writes a fancy script whose whole purpose is to
download many popular non-free packages (Opera, Adobe's PDF reader,
etc.) and install them, and he releases it under a free license such
as GPL, it would be acceptable for inclusion in Ututo?

Note that this is not a hypothetical example.  Debian's "contrib"
section of the archive is full of such wrappers -- free packages which
exist to do one job only -- download and install non-free packages.

There is no significant difference between them and the issue we're
discussing.  (Note that this case is drastically different from being
able to compile and run non-free software with GNU libc and other free
libraries -- Alexandre Oliva explained that very well.)

I firmly believe that distros should watch out for such problems and
take the necessary steps to avoid them.