Re: LibreWolf 130.0-1 notes

[André Batista]

Hi Ian,

sex 06 set 2024 às 08:29:40 (1725622180), ian@retrospec.tv enviou:
> 130.0-1 is out, but there’s an issue around DNS-over-HTTP preferences
> changing[1] in this version.  Since this has a negative impact on users
> requiring them to reset their preferences to correct, I’m skipping this one
> and will package the next release.
> 
> I separately have an issue open with them around the Firefox 130 AI Chatbot
> integration.  This uses non-free "AI" services which have been trained on
> stolen GPL code, and hopefully will get stripped out of LW.  It’s an
> experimental opt-in feature at the moment, but shouldn’t be present at all.
> 
> Once there’s a fix for #1975, I’ll work on packaging it, disabling the AI
> nonsense in the Guix package definition, if necessary.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
>  — Ian
> 
> [1]: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1975

In my opinion we should keep these discussions open and transparent for
the whole guix community, unless there are some serious concerns in
sharing it with the internet at large or if they are truly personal
exchanges of no interest to other guix.

Since I believe your above message _is_ of interest to guix (guixen
could have a different understanding on this heated debate and could
have a distinct judgement on the desirability of skipping this release),
there is no personal or private information on your message and since
we were instructed to keep team discussions on guix-devel[1], I'm
taking the liberty to CC the list here.

As for the content of your message, I think it's your take here, but IMO
the DoH bug is annoying but not a show stopper, unless of course they
are about to release a fixed version (which seems to be the case).

As for the 'non-free AI services', well aren't services beyond
free/non-free or always non-free since they run on machines beyond users'
control? I did not read on it though and would certainly be in favor of
removing it if it means that librewolf would be auto-connecting to some
services upon start or if it has code that is collecting /analyzing
users' input, suggesting services or etc.

Finally, though I see why some people are concerned with corporations
training models on GPL'd code without attribution and without warning
their users of the need to respect GPL when further sharing, I'd
suggest you to avoid loaded terms such as 'stolen'[2]. License or 
copyright infringement should not be equated with theft, copyright
should not be equated with private property. IMO it goes against the
very core idea of free software to equate those things.

1. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-08/msg00174.html
2. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft