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Comment by klez | Hacker News Reader

> once they starting making compromises in their mission

Honest question: what are you talking about? I seem to have missed that happening.

There are a lot of examples, but the most notable is the endorsement / promotion of the X60 / X200 with non-free EC firmware and a dial-up modem that requires non-free software to work.

While not a freedom issue, they endorsed PureOS even though it uses a Debian kernel (linux-libre Vs. Debian kernel, not going to get into that here) while another distro was denied for that specific thing.

What's wrong with Debian kernel?

This is what I found about this particular debacle.

https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2017-1...

Debian's kernel is deblobbed and contains only free software. If you can find an example contrary to this, it is a bug.

The poster on the thread you linked is making the argument that free software shouldn't be looking for non-free firmware, even when it isn't installed. That's... interesting and not something I've ever heard complained about.

The FSF doesn't endorse Debian because of the non-free repository which, while not officially a part of Debian, they consider a Debian. If you install only the "main" repository you will get only free software. The default install only contains the "main" repository.

I know why Debian isn't endorsed by the fsf (and I'm ambivalent about that, for what it's worth).

But the post I linked to makes an interesting point abuot why ConnochaetOS is not endorsed while the same reasoning was not applied for PureOS.

Ironically, many GNU manuals are included in the non-free sections because Debian considers the GNU FDL non-free because it allows invariant sections - sections that cannot be changed.

s/FSL/FDL/

Yes, thanks.

It has long been the case that FSF-endorsed distros could not use the Debian kernel, even though it contains only free software.

It had always been my understanding that the intention is that the messages the Debian kernel displays looks like an error message suggesting that the module should have been present. Even if it looks less like an error, and is more matter-of-factly "such and such functionality is disabled because nonfree.bin could not be loaded"; reading between the lines, that sounds a lot like "install nonfree.bin for that functionality".

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2017-12/m...

However, following the more recent discussion, particularly the comments of Alexandre Oliva (the Linux-libre maintainer), I'm not so sure. I hadn't realized that many of the extreme deblobbing measures (replacing firmare filenames with "/* DEBLOBBED /") in Linux-libre were because it must not load non-free blobs even on distros that are hostile to that goal. On FSF-endorsed distros that are not hostile to that goal, what measures are* necessary?

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2018-01/m... https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2018-01/m...

(I am one of the core developers of Parabola, an FSF-endorsed distro)

> endorsement / promotion of the X60 [...] with non-free EC firmware and a dial-up modem that requires non-free software to work

Sorry, I may need a source on this. My X60 boots perfectly without any non-free firmware, and everything works (except the wireless card I swapped in, I don't know if also the original needed them). I'm asking for a source because I would like to understand how they endorsed it. If it boots without problems and you need an external dongle to get wifi I don't see a problem with that, from a freedom standpoint.

Really, I'm not trying to be a contrarian, just trying to better understand where my money is going.

EDIT: typo

https://libreboot.org/faq.html#what-other-firmware-exists-ou...

> There are a lot of examples, but the most notable is the endorsement / promotion of the X60 / X200 with non-free EC firmware

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html

> What is the boundary, in digital devices, between hardware and software? It follows from the definitions. Software is the operational part of a device that can be copied and changed in a computer; hardware is the operational part that can't be. This is the right way to make the distinction because it relates to the practical consequences.

> There is a gray area between hardware and software that contains firmware that can be upgraded or replaced, but is not meant ever to be upgraded or replaced once the product is sold.

See http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/mobiles/7buj19us.txt ^F EC version

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