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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html

Arch is a swing and a miss

> Arch has no policy against distributing nonfree software through their normal channels, and nonfree blobs are shipped with their kernel, Linux.

Debian is a no go

> Debian also maintains a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily find these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database and its wiki.

Sorry Gentoo

> Gentoo includes installation recipes for a number of nonfree programs in its primary package system.

BSD

> FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all include instructions for obtaining nonfree programs in their ports system. In addition, their kernels include nonfree firmware blobs.

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I really appreciate GNU keeping their ground. We need them to keep the Overton window correctly framed.

Nonfree drivers are not OK.

Nonfree BIOS/EFI programs are not OK.

Nonfree kernel blobs are not OK.

We may use them out of necessity and pragmatism (some nonfree software is better than 100% nonfree software! an Arch user still has more intact freedoms than a Windows user), but we should still reject them ideologically and remember that they are tolerated but not accepted.

Same. Let the GNU fight this fight and we benefit. It's about choice.

Even if we don't read the screeds or have to worry about it.

Specialized use or small audience or should be accommodated. I'm specifically thinking in terms of handicap accessibility. I need speech recognition in order to work effectively. The only good speech recognition environment for people with disabilities is Dragon on Windows. Everything else simply converts speech to text. I need something converts speech to tax then digs into text boxes and GUIs to enable editing and recognition corrections by speech.

The same also applies to copilot. I've trained myself to give it prompts to generate code that matches what I would've generated by hand years ago. But without copilot, I wouldn't program. Simply not practical.

Why do you continue to use HN, which contains URLs to nonfree software?

A user has the right to use non-free software if they want. A company should not force anyone to use non-free software: it's unethical.

> A company should not force anyone to use non-free software: it's unethical.

Why is it unethical?

Would it be unethical to be required to use an entirely mechanical machine that was still covered by patents or trade secrets?

You’re replying to someone named “fsflover”. This is a bit like trying to convince someone named “maolover” that capitalism has some advantages.

The idea that non-free software is unethical and should be abolished is the bedrock of all of the FSF’s philosophy, and is held almost as a religious view for RMS and his adherents.

Not sure what their nick is supposed to mean. And I'm more interested in understanding why they feel so strongly, and whether their view extends elsewhere, than trying to change their mind.

Religion is completely unnecessary here. It can be purely practical. By relying on nonfree software you loose your possibility to escape walled gardens (Apple), could be forced to pay more for support, or can't get any support at all (some Android phones, old Apple phones) and so on.

It's unethical, because the developers of nonfree software have too much power over the user. They create an artificial monopoly, where nobody except them can provide support in case something goes wrong. Thanks to this monopoly, for example, you have to buy a new Android phone every two years.

All these questions are answered in book "Free Software, Free Society" (with better explanations than I can give).

> mechanical machine that was still covered by patents or trade secrets

I would say, yes, it would be unethical, too.

Why is Debian in that list then? It sounds like they just allow their users to access non-free software if they want to

> people can readily find these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database and its wiki.

Debian does not clearly separate free and nonfree repositories. Users might be mislead into using nonfree packages without their knowledge/consent. I once was misled like this.

Today, I am using Debian myself and avoid nonfree packages knowingly. However I am glad that FSF keeps reminding users about it. Note that they do not prohibit the usage of Debian. They just don't endorse it.

Some of these distros are not approved because they talk about or make it too easy to acquire nonfree software.

What if the bios, drivers, and blobs were source-available? Obviously a true free license is preferable but I can see why commercial vendors are hesitant to allow anybody to make whatever changes they want. From what I understand the GNU project would still reject that on ideological grounds even if it addressed a lot of the theoretical problems (running code where you have no way of knowing what it’s doing)

>commercial vendors are hesitant to allow anybody to make whatever changes they want

Why? If a vendor sells a fingerprint scanner or something why do they need the driver to be closed source? Why does somebody tweaking the source bother them?

I've never really understood this. Sure, Microsoft word needs to be closed source but why a driver?

I always figured a lot of it is covering over garbage hardware in software. Whatever "clever" feature it had doesn't actually work and they fake it in the drivers, or they're having to patch around a maze of different buggy hardware revisions. Nobody wants to show the world how that sausage is made.

I think a lot of it is also just a general amount of fear for (from the companys perspective) no benefit. There's a lot of fear that if the code is visible, you could be sued for its contents or it could be otherwise used against you in court, competitors could "steal" your effort, etc.

Plus there's just a lot of belief in the nonfree circles that the software freedom movement is just religious zealot hippies who think software should never be paid for and that microsoft programmers should work for free and starve, and that anyone who does develop novel software should have it immediately ripped off and copied by competitors and make no money because capitalism is bad.

(I'm being a bit hyperbolic but not much.)

Then of course that's better! But still not good enough.

If I fix a bug or desire some new functionality and implement it for myself, am I free if I cannot legally share it with my neighbors? Certainly not.

Also depending on exactly how they release the source, you may still not know that's what the blob is actually doing. I suspect many vendors, even if forced somehow to provide source, would try to not allow (or make very annoying) building it or signing it. And if you can't build it yourself, or if you can but can't run it and the build isn't bit-perfect reproducible, then you can't know the blob is actually the output of building the source.

You could decompile but let's be real, if security researchers looked at Heartbleed not once but twice, specifically in the context of it being a bug, and both times asking if it's a security vulnerability, and said no - then I am not going to believe that a human inspecting decompiled machine code is going to be very good at finding well-hidden malware in blobs.

Since people sometimes ask, here is the nonfree url that taints openbsd.

In the ports tree, there was a makefile. http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/ports/devel/jdk/1.3-linux/Attic/Ma...

If you open that makefile, there is a url. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download.html

If you open that url in a browser, you will be presented with the opportunity to download nonfree software.

Yeah I smell Stallman in that text

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