From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NPGkf-0000Qo-FS for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:39:18 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9BDD7E0976; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:37:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from jolexa.net (jolexa.net [69.164.197.24]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 68E12E0976 for ; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:37:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: by jolexa.net (Postfix, from userid 5001) id 041595BA1A; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:37:57 +0000 (UTC) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.1 (2007-05-02) on sawce.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.8 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL autolearn=disabled version=3.2.1 Received: from [192.168.1.110] (c-24-245-20-2.hsd1.mn.comcast.net [24.245.20.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by jolexa.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A149F5B76F for ; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:37:56 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <4B38C2C3.5000704@gentoo.org> Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:37:55 -0600 From: Jeremy Olexa User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20091030) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo References: <4B3843E2.90800@doublecreations.com> In-Reply-To: <4B3843E2.90800@doublecreations.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: f781dc4e-5941-45d6-bba5-20dcda56c28e X-Archives-Hash: e393abd4308ef1df5c6d5fe89da9cd8c Vincent Launchbury wrote: > Hi, > > I recently emailed the Gentoo PR team, voicing my concerns about the > amount of non-free software within Gentoo. I got an interesting response > from Sebastian Pipping, who said that while Gentoo is all about choice, > including the choice to install non-free software, the project is > interested in making it easy for people to run a 100% free system, > should they choose that path. > > I found out about the license filtering feature in the dev version of > portage, and used it to remove all the non-free software from my > system. However, it wasn't a perfect experience. Based on what Sebastian > had to say, and my own experience using it, I have a few suggestions. > > 1) Not all of the licenses are completely accurate. For example, the > Linux kernels are listed as soley GPL-2, yet they contain blobs of > non-free firmware. Perhaps a general-purpose "not-free" license could be > appended to such packages. This would only affect people who choose to > use the feature. It could be minused from the FSF-APPROVED group for > example. > > Also relating to this, what is freedist? The package app-text/dos2unix > lists 'freedist' as its license, and /usr/portage/licenses/freedist says > only "Freely Distributable". Several other packages do this, and I'm > sure it's not correct. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the dos2unix > package is from http://www.thefreecountry.com/tofrodos/, which clearly > says its GPLv2. Packages like this could be looked into and fixed. File bugs mate. Licensing is not exactly clear to all users or devs. As can be seen here[1] for dos2unix. It sounds like you care in this area, so get involved. [1]: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177822 -Jeremy > > 2) There are no free versions of the kernel in the main tree. The Latin > American FSF maintains blob-free kernels at > http://www.linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/. They could > be added alongside the official vanilla ebuilds. > > 3) Some free software packages bring in non-free optional dependencies > by default. For example, media-gfx/imagemagick brings in > media-fonts/corefonts. As suggested by Sebastian, a free profile could be > created, that changes these defaults, to reduce the hassle of > maintaining a free system. Again, this would only affect users who > choose to use that profile. > > 4) Using something like ACCEPT_LICENSES="-* @FSF-APPROVED" is a good > start, but its quite a hassle to keep checking all the licenses. One > annoyance is packages like sys-devel/gcc. gcc has the libgcc license, > which is just GPLv2+, with some extra permissions granted. Although it's > important to make such a distinction, these extra freedoms are > irrelevant to license filtering. > > I suppose the only feasible way to fix this would be to expand the > license groups in /usr/portage/profiles/license_groups. Would it cause > any problems if they were quite large? > > Another option might be to introduce an optional IS_FREE="yes/no" option > to the ebuild files, which could override the other license settings. > > 5) Documentation on how to set up and maintain a fully free system could > be added. > > > To summarize, my general idea is to fix some licensing issues, introduce > the libre kernels and have a 100% free profile that would create the > least possible amount of hassle for anyone using it. This in turn would > make Gentoo more accessible to the free software community, without > affecting people that don't use the profile. > > This is my first post here, so I apologize if it's misdirected. I'm not > sure if I'd really be able to help much on the technical side, but if > this garners any cooperation, I'll gladly help out with anything I can. > If someone could point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. > > Kind Regards, > Vincent Launchbury. > >