Re: OpenMandriva turmoil - sabotage?

rbowman <[email protected]> writes:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Well back in the day Debian would not include 'non-free' drivers in its
>> distro.
>> Linux Mint did.
>
> I thought the non-free repo was why the FSF stopped supporting Debian. 
>
> https://itsfoss.com/news/fsf-does-not-consider-debian-a-free-distribution/
>
> Debian is in good company. The list of FSF approved distributions is short 
> and obscure.
>
> https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
>
> Ideological purity comes with a price. 

https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html explains their
reasoning. non-free is part of the issue but worse (from the FSF’s point
of view) is that non-free firmware device firmwares are installed
automatically. (Note, not the same thing as device drivers.)

Personally I consider the FSF position quixotic at best. Non-free
firmware only runs if you have the relevant device. If you don’t have
the device then it just sits harmlessly on disk - a minor waste of
space, but not any kind of real-life infringement of end user freedoms
of the kind the FSF cares about.

If, on the other hand, you do have a relevant device, the FSF position
would mean not being able to use it. If you share the FSF’s views
precisely then you might consider that an acceptable outcome, of course:
but why would you have knowingly bought such a device in the first
place?

-- 
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/