[Arm-netbook] Debian GNU/Linux, nonfree software, and FSF's free distros list

[Elena ``of Valhalla'']

On 2016-10-17 at 10:02:26 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> I wish Debian and the FSF would work together to resolve this issue.

They are, more or less: there has been quite some activity a few years
ago which lead to some changes, but work seems to have stalled 
(the `mailing list`_ isn't seeing much traffic lately)

.. _`mailing list`: https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-collab-discuss

I suspect that what changes could be agreed on have been done, while
most other cases are points where they had to agree to disagree, such as
the freedom status of the FSF docs and the existence of non-free.

I see that there has been a BOF_ about collaboration between Debian and
the FSF at the latest Debconf, but I haven't seen the video, so I don't
know what was said (yet, I may have just found something to watch in the
near future)

> It shouldn't be that hard to modify Debian so that `non-free` is only ever
> used based on an explicit user request (and to let the user specify
> that this explicit request only applies this one time).

It is, already. users already have to explicitely accept (in some cases that
involve hardware support) or request (in all other cases) that non-free
is enabled.

There is disagreement on how hard it should be to do so, with the FSF
considering what Debian choose to do "too easy".

> Along the same lines, the `non-free` section should be split in two:
> `proprietary`, `non-dfsg`, where the `non-dfsg` part would only contain
> packages which the DFSG rejects as non-free but which many people in the
> Free Software world consider Free nevertheless (basically FSF's docs).

If something is not-DFSG is by definition proprietary as far as Debian
is concerned.

There have been talks about dividing non-free, however, splitting out
the firmwares (that lots of people consider a necessary evil for another
few years), documentation (for which some people including the FSF tend
to have lower requirements) and everything else (the really evil stuff)

There was agreement on this split, but I suspect that it has been stuck
in a lack of volunteer time.
-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''