Re: [GNU-linux-libre] reply FSF

[Ivan Zaigralin]

On Friday, June 21, 2019 18:46:17 Ineiev wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 06:00:32PM -0400, bill-auger wrote:
> > i dont remember exactly, but it appears to be in response to
> > someones concern that the freenix documentation is incomplete,
> > which is not a problem on its own; but that, more importantly, it
> > directs users to the slackware documentation to provide its
> > missing information
> 
> Quite right,
> https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2018-07/msg00016.html
> says,
> 
> > It makes zero sense to duplicate the documentation, since our
> > project is dead set on keeping the technical details identical
> > to Slackware as much as possible, allowing us not to fork
> > support.
> 
> I believe this results in a doubt that should be resolved:
> if Freenix doesn't "fork support", does it mean that it
> effectively directs its users to Slackware?

Before I address these concerns, please let me share with you my emotional 
state. I am getting rather frustrated with this conversation, although I am 
definitely not blaming anyone in particular for that, except for possibly 
myself. The thing is, Freenix has committed to compliance with FSDG prior to 
2017. We have received a number of relevant bug reports since then, and we 
took care of each and every one of them. To mention just some, we changed the 
project name and removed offending packages, like some fonts and some Mozilla 
products.

Bill says rather explicitly, he has no bugs to report, he's just musing. FSF 
has not told us the official FSF position concerning these hypothetical 
scenarios either. Our entire documentation at freenix.net can be skimmed in 
minutes; if there's an FSDG-related bug there, having to do with either the 
links or the quantity of documentation, it hasn't been reported in years. Do 
you perhaps see now where we are coming from? We are not aware of anything 
afoul of FSDG within our project as of right now, and one of our primary goals 
is to take freedom bug reports with full seriousness. We are at a loss as to 
what else we need to do at this point of the FSF approval process in order to 
move it along, so some clarification would be very welcome.

Now, to address the issues raised in Bill's original post:
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2018-07/msg00023.html

To the best of my understanding, the issues there have to do with 
documentation and/or linking to Slackware documentation. The entirety   of 
Freenix documentation is currently in one place: freenix.net. There's wiki 
there, a forum, and the source code for the deployment script. If 
quality/quantity of documentation is a concern for this certification process, 
it's there for anyone to see and judge.

There are a few Web links, as of now, from our wiki to Slackware-related 
resources. None of them are with the intent to provide documentation to 
Freenix end users. They are all credit and/or reference links, practically 
unavoidable simply because we believe it is our duty to explain to our users 
and the potential contributors just what we do to the upstream Slackware 
distribution to make it into a freedom-respecting product.

Once again, please let us know if there's anything there you see that is in 
violation of FSDG.

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