On 7 December 2016 at 14:13, Bruno Friedmann wrote:

On mercredi, 7 décembre 2016 13.57:59 h CET Axel Braun wrote:

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Dear project members,

background of the question is a discussion I recently had with R. Stallman. According to his point of view, openSUSE is not free software, as unfree components are installed.

Lets take a look at the definition of freedom [1]. Free software allows you to - execute a program - distribute it - analyze and modify the source code - re-distribute the modified program.

This matches for the most part the license for openSUSE, see /etc/YaST2/ licenses/base/license.txt : ... With the exception of certain files containing the “openSUSE” trademark discussed below, the license terms for the components permit you to copy and redistribute the component. With the potential exception of certain firmware files, the license terms for the components permit you to copy, modify, and redistribute the component, in both source code and binary code forms. This agreement does not limit your rights under, or grant you rights that supersede, the license terms of any particular component. ....

Except for the part ' With the potential exception of certain firmware files' , this gives us all required freedoms. Firmware is usually tricky....so looking at this I found some Firmware files with the License string 'openSUSE-Firmware', and [2] on the net (but not sure how up-to-date this page is). Does anyone know the rationale behind openSUSE-Firmware license?

openSUSE comes by default with the OSS and non-OSS repository. Richards remark here was that files from non-OSS are installed without making the user aware about the nature of these unfree components. This is true, although the permission is asked for every of the two installed programs (AdobeICCProfiles and a gstreamer-fluendo-mp3). Most users do probably not realize the point of proprietary software here. And the benefit of AdobeICC is limited if you are not using color management.

I see the bias between free software and useability: If you desperately need some proprietary firmware to get your hardware up and running, you will see the freedom aspect only in the second row. As a distribution, we should make sure that a wide range of hardware is supported.

On the other hand, and as openSUSE explains free software in its flyers (without stating THAT oS is free), we should try to install only free components in the first glance.

But we could leave the user the choice (during installation) to include non- free componentes / non-oss repo. By this we can make sure that exotic software as well gets supported, if we separate the non-free Firmware into the non-OSS Repo.

Does that sound reasonable? Discussion please! Axel

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [2] https://de.opensuse.org/Firmware

Ok just 2 words (or a bit more :-)

mp3 and non-oss were there due to high demand of users in the past at least. Should we change this default, why not, did you raise your hand to handle all requests of users wanting to play their crap ?

-firmware : hopefully distributed from upstream, and even if not being free as we would like, not distributing them and making installing openSUSE harder than others would just be a non sense. Sorry in that case, once openhardware will have won the battle we will be able to shift our position, otherwise, the first things we need is offering a pragmatic and well balanced path to people to enjoy freedom. Being a bit too bigot create the risk to have users that will tell us (well they won't talk about it) that they just choose the things that work for them. (A Windows surface, a Apple xPad, an android + crap things etc).....

--

Bruno Friedmann Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch Bareos Partner, openSUSE Member, fsfe fellowship GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227 irc: tigerfoot

Hi, At our SFD events, some people did complain that they could not accept some licences at the very beginning (at installation) and not being nagged every now and then. This also happens when there are updates and need to validate licences.... There are ethics and then what do you do in practice for non free licences.... Having said that, we survived so far. Best, Jimmy -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

background of the question is a discussion I recently had with R. Stallman. According to his point of view, openSUSE is not free software, as unfree components are installed.

Lets take a look at the definition of freedom [1]. Free software allows you to - execute a program - distribute it - analyze and modify the source code - re-distribute the modified program.

While I like this thread's direction overall, I have two things that we probably already know but which may be worth pointing out. 1. RMS, whom I think is pretty great as an evangelist, is more-interested in free as in speech (libre) rather than free as in beer (gratis), though I think technically he encourages both in software. openSUSE clearly meets the latter definition, so we're dealing with the former. 2. Free as in speech is great, and openSUSE is clearly open source software, so it meets this definition as long as you ignore that we also bundle some things to be convenient to end users. RMS says this is a no-no, and perhaps we can improve it, but there's a continuum between completely-proprietary and completely free; I doubt RMS's laptop uses open source hardware, completely unencumbered by patents, but I won't begrudge him on that. 3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it. Aaron Burgemeister -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le 07/12/2016 à 16:35, Aleksa Sarai a écrit :

Well, we are definitely not an FSF-approved distribution because we distribute proprietary software

there are very few approved distributions :-) https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 12/08/2016 02:05 AM, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

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2. Free as in speech is great, and openSUSE is clearly open source software, so it meets this definition as long as you ignore that we also bundle some things to be convenient to end users. RMS says this is a no-no, and perhaps we can improve it, but there's a continuum between completely-proprietary and completely free;

Well, we are definitely not an FSF-approved distribution because we distribute proprietary software (and also maintain repositories of proprietary software). I would argue that we, by extension, are not a "free software distribution" in the strict sense of the word -- but note that Debian is also not a "free software distribution" either.

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I doubt RMS's laptop uses open source hardware, completely unencumbered by patents, but I won't begrudge him on that.

Because such a laptop does not exist, but he (and others) are trying to make it happen.

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3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it.

Please add these comments to this FATE request[1] I made a few months ago. I think it should be on the "Additional Repositories" page, with a checkbox saying "[X] Enable proprietary repositories". This signals two things to the user:

1. The use of proprietary software is an *addition* to openSUSE, which can be used without proprietary software.

2. That removing proprietary software from openSUSE is really as simple as checking a box. There's no need to manually blacklist the repos / patterns (which is what I currently do).

[1]: https://features.opensuse.org/321763

If we were to go down this route we should scan the machines hardware and show a popup telling them which hardware on there machine may not work as expected due to there choice to use only free software so that we don't end up with a bunch of bugs about things not working without people realising this choice led to that. As a side note as someone who worked at a hardware manufacturing company (Non PC) alot of whats in firmware now days would have been a couple of resistors or wires 10 years back, this is mostly due to firmware being cheaper now. If you have 2 products one more expensive one with more features and a cheaper variant from a manufacturing point its often cheaper to just use one set of hardware for both in the past there would have been a extra wire or resistor to split the two variants. Now this is done in firmware rather then with a resistor so in many cases firmware is closer to hardware then software (Yes sometimes its not). While the hardware may cost the same to manufacture the reason one is more expensive then the other is the R&D costs, yes this bit of firmware could be made open or even removed but then there would only be one varient and everyone would need to pay more. The open hardware movement is a nice idea but its alot harder then open software due to the overheads involved. For example I can sit on my couch and write free software in my spare time but I couldn't sit on my couch and fabricate a custom silicon chip the costs associated with even doing a couple of prototype runs are so expensive that its not feasible unless you have huge amounts of spare money or a good business plan on how to recover the costs, this is why there are so few CPU manufacturers. I could sit down and design a open CPU in silicon but there is no way I could cover the cost of producing it. Anyway enough ranting, good luck and have fun. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adeliade Australia, UTC+9:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

All, thanks for your contribution! I will try to give a summary below. Am Donnerstag, 8. Dezember 2016, 02:35:00 CET schrieb Aleksa Sarai:

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2. Free as in speech is great, and openSUSE is clearly open source software, so it meets this definition as long as you ignore that we also bundle some things to be convenient to end users. RMS says this is a no-no, and perhaps we can improve it, but there's a continuum between completely-proprietary and completely free;

Well, we are definitely not an FSF-approved distribution because we distribute proprietary software (and also maintain repositories of proprietary software). I would argue that we, by extension, are not a "free software distribution" in the strict sense of the word -- but note that Debian is also not a "free software distribution" either.

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I doubt RMS's laptop uses open source hardware, completely unencumbered by patents, but I won't begrudge him on that.

Because such a laptop does not exist, but he (and others) are trying to make it happen.

The problem is a system management chip from Intel, where the tech specs are completely hidden by Intel. No info about it is disclosed (according to an article in german c't magazine). FSF and one company refurbish old ThinkPad T400 models with an open SM chip - so here we ahve a kind of open hardware, at least in the eyes of FSF.

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3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it.

Please add these comments to this FATE request[1] I made a few months ago. I think it should be on the "Additional Repositories" page, with a checkbox saying "[X] Enable proprietary repositories". This signals two things to the user:

1. The use of proprietary software is an *addition* to openSUSE, which can be used without proprietary software.

2. That removing proprietary software from openSUSE is really as simple as checking a box. There's no need to manually blacklist the repos / patterns (which is what I currently do).

[1]: https://features.opensuse.org/321763

Actually I like this approach of an additional checkbox that makes users aware of the proprietary nature. And I feel we are all aligned that we should not make installation less user friendly for the sake of beeing totally free software. On the other hand, an average user cant judge if he requires proprietary drivers. A check/scan tool would be ideal, but probably a PITA to maintain. A weaker solution is the hint with the non-oss repo that it may contain soft/ firmware that is needed to run the computer. You may try without first, and it your computer does not work properly, come back and enable non-oss. MAy sound scary, and not as neat as the automated scan. On the remark from Per:

Could you sum up the benefit to the end-user in one or two sentences, please. Wrt freedom and functionality, anyone who uses an iPhone clearly favours functionality over freedom, and I suspect the same might apply to many of our members.

Anyone using an iPhone is probably not aware of the whole freedom discussion, but is most likely driven from other factors, like the assumption of being cool, or simple brand addiction. And the perception that iAnything is easy to use (what I personally cant share). So as long as someone does not see freedom as a personal value, there will be no change in behaviour. Snowden/NSA/BND or not. Some just remain ignorant, but that should not stop us from supporting the idea for free/libre software Cheers Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Axel Braun wrote:

[...] And I feel we are all aligned that we should not make installation less user friendly for the sake of beeing totally free software. On the other hand, an average user cant judge if he requires proprietary drivers. A check/scan tool would be ideal, but probably a PITA to maintain.

The list of accepted licenses in openSUSE is in obs-service-format_spec_file. Shouldn't be hard to extend that list with a flag for free/nonfree. Would actually make sense as input for a bot to reject requests with non-free licenses to Factory before a human has to look at it. cu Ludwig -- (o_ Ludwig Nussel //\ V_/_ http://www.suse.com/ SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Jane Smithard, Graham Norton, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On lundi, 12 décembre 2016 19.11:10 h CET Ludwig Nussel wrote:

Aaron B wrote:

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[...] 3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it.

I'd rather like to see the extra screen where YaST asks for online repos removed and a generic link to list of online repos embedded into the installation summary screen instead. Those who really want to can disable the non-oss repo there then. ++1 A better place to improve the awareness for non-free software are the actual software selection front-ends. If you look for example for opera in gnome-software it displays a hint that it may not be free software. Not sure how gnome-software finds out exactly but I'm sure such a mechanism could be built into YaST and zypper as well. We shouldn't block or annoy anyone when installing proprietary software but some unobtrusive notice would be nice IMO.

cu Ludwig ++1

-- Bruno Friedmann Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch Bareos Partner, openSUSE Member, fsfe fellowship GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227 irc: tigerfoot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

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3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it.

I'd rather like to see the extra screen where YaST asks for online repos removed and a generic link to list of online repos embedded into the installation summary screen instead. Those who really want to can disable the non-oss repo there then.

I was also in that discussion with RMS that Axel mentioned at the beginning of the thread (well, I actually started it :-) ). If the final goal is to be "blessed" by the FSF, the solution suggested by Ludwig would not be enough.

In addition, it's still obscuring any such choices from the end user. The additional repos screen is a good place to put such an option at the moment because (as an end user) you don't need to manually go through the repo list and know which ones are proprietary -- there's just a checkbox.

The FSF will never endorse (that is, list as free in their site) a distro containing pointers to non-free software. No matter how many information we provide about it being not free or whether it's disabled by default.

This is true. However, we cannot make such a jump in one step. First we start by making proprietary repositories more clearly marked so that users can disable them. Once we get feedback for that, we can consider making it opt-in. Once we get feedback for *that* we can consider removing them from the base install. And once we finally get feedback from that we can consider purging them from OBS. Will it take time? Yes. Is it worth the work? IMO yes, but I understand that other people wouldn't agree.

Not saying we should aim for it (I don't think so), just clarifying expectations.

I think we should ask ourselves what proprietary software we are hosting and how many people actually use it. Given openSUSE's interesting legal position, we're actually one of the more likely mainstream distributions that could make the jump to FSF approval. -- Aleksa Sarai Software Engineer (Containers) SUSE Linux GmbH https://www.cyphar.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

you may all know that arguing with RMS is worthless. It's good to have a fanatic to remember than we don't always act as we would like, but we have to use the roads we have and building new routes is a looooooooooong way to go by the way is him still deprecating coca versus pepsi? jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 2016-12-21 07:28, Michal Kubecek wrote:

On Tuesday, 20 December 2016 17:58 Carlos E. R. wrote:

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I would certainly disagree with removal of the non-oss repo. You would also need to remove mentions or links to the proprietary nvidia driver, the vmware driver... I would have to seek for another distro.

Just out of curiosity: what is wrong (from licensing point of view) with VMware drivers?

I don't know. Good question. I assume that the FSF is not happy, but I don't know if it is the drivers or the virtualization engine. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" (Minas Tirith)) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAlhbLqQACgkQja8UbcUWM1yHWAD+IMMkbyvgbLD32P7v5AgDKqWF 9rMJNr0Rwjh94+0Rm7MA/jJG5As7rWnC3uFmGEjm+Lzrkrmwd9EtxiE7cJuKw/N9 =EvIe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

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I don't know. Good question. I assume that the FSF is not happy Is one of goals of openSUSE making FSF happy?

That is what this thread is discussing. openSUSE is one of the very few distributions that actually has policies regarding free software (openSUSE:Factory _only_ has free software in it). The only thing required for the FSF to like us is that we no longer offer an official or recommended way to download proprietary software. This jump is obviously painful, so my recommendation is that we (at the very least) provide an easy way for users to opt-out of proprietary repositories during install. But more importantly, the reason why I would want that (and is the main reason I opened the FATE in the first place) is because _personally_ I want to be able to avoid proprietary software when using openSUSE. Especially when I'm installing openSUSE for someone else. To everyone complaining about openSUSE then being harder to use by end-users, I would like to remind them that Packman exists and is used by a lot of users -- they already are used to adding add-on repositories to get more codecs for VLC or whatever. -- Aleksa Sarai Software Engineer (Containers) SUSE Linux GmbH https://www.cyphar.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Donnerstag, 22. Dezember 2016, 08:50:14 CET schrieb Administrator:

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To everyone complaining about openSUSE then being harder to use by end-users, I would like to remind them that Packman exists and is used by a lot of users -- they already are used to adding add-on repositories to get more codecs for VLC or whatever. The distinction is in having a usable install when finished - nothing in the Packman repositories are essential for most normal uses. Some things in the non-OSS repositories are.

You are right, the system has to be useable when installation is finished. But I did not find one program in non-OSS that is needed (on my hardware) for this goal. On the other hand, multimedia is a primary topic specially for non-technical users, so they will sooner or later install packman. Is this something we have to bother about? No, as packman is not openSUSE. Although I'm happy that it is available, and make use of it. Every user is free to do what he wants to do. (Multimedia-installation for missing codecs out of a openSUSE standard installation never worked for my by the way - it always ended up in an error message that something was not found...)

I’d suggest that your uses for an installation differ from those of the majority of people. We can collectively agree to make the distribution less useful, but I, for one, would choose not to.

In terms of installation I dont see the big technical difference. The message should be that openSUSE cares for users privacy and freedom by offering only free software by default. But giving him as well the option to use his freedom to add non-free software, e.g. video codecs. So we could offer in future three USP: ease of use, ease of administration (YaST), and freedom be default. Cheers Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

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So we could offer in future three USP: ease of use, ease of administration (YaST), and freedom be default.

For most users, I question the value and importance of #3.

It may be that I don’t read the right mailing lists, but I don’t see the direct connection between non-OSS and non-freedom. Yours David-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi, On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 12:53 PM, Axel Braun wrote:

In terms of installation I dont see the big technical difference. The message should be that openSUSE cares for users privacy and freedom by offering only free software by default. But giving him as well the option to use his freedom to add non-free software, e.g. video codecs.

As an user and occasional contributor I would like to point out that "free" is a very loaded and ambiguous term for end-users. Most of them are not aware of the multiple facets of "free software" and would IMO find it confusing to be asked to whether they want to install "non-free" packages. I think that most of them would associate "free" with the obligation to pay for something, not with licenses. I would caution against a change in the UI which can lead to confusion amongst our users. Thanks, Robert -- http://robert.muntea.nu/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

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I would caution against a change in the UI which can lead to confusion amongst our users.

It can also be called "[x] Enable proprietary repositories" (which is how I think Ubuntu handles it). The point is that there should be a checkbox, so that we can tell non-tech users "just uncheck this box while installing and you don't need to think about it after that".

Right, that is a much better way of putting it than mine. But why would we encourage users to do so? I believe users that desire to include only free software on their computers will already know to uncheck that. Others that want things to 'just work' should not change the default. Robert -- http://robert.muntea.nu/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Thursday, 22 December 2016 2:38 Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2016-12-21 07:28, Michal Kubecek wrote:

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Just out of curiosity: what is wrong (from licensing point of view) with VMware drivers?

I don't know. Good question. I assume that the FSF is not happy, but I don't know if it is the drivers or the virtualization engine.

If they are not happy about GPL2 of VMware drivers (which they apparently aren't, otherwise they wouldn't invent things like GPL3), they are probably not happy about linux kernel as a whole either. :-) (Well, thinking about it, they actually are not very happy about it.) Michal Kubeček -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Montag, 2. Januar 2017, 19:23:17 CET schrieb Aleksa Sarai:

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Just out of curiosity: what is wrong (from licensing point of view) with VMware drivers?

I don't know. Good question. I assume that the FSF is not happy, but I don't know if it is the drivers or the virtualization engine.

If they are not happy about GPL2 of VMware drivers (which they apparently aren't, otherwise they wouldn't invent things like GPL3), they are probably not happy about linux kernel as a whole either. :-) (Well, thinking about it, they actually are not very happy about it.)

The reason they aren't happy with Linux is because the upstream version has proprietary code inside it (in the form of .ihex code without corresponding source). And Linus doesn't care (and hasn't cared since the late 90s) -- which is why the FSF supports the Linux-libre project (which de-blobs Linux).

Strange. RMS just claimed that Linux is part of GNU, it uses lots of GNU stuff, and therefore it should be called GNU/Linux. [1] The operating system the GNU project had initiated passed away after Linux got more and more successful.

And the reason the FSF doesn't like the VMWare drivers is because VMWare the company has *allegedly* infringed on the GPL in the case of busybox (and Linux).

Can someone explain the animosity towards the FSF? We owe a lot to them, and it's not fair to smear them by claiming that the reason why they do not support distributions such as us is because of trivial reasons. Their concerns _are_ legitimate IMHO.

No idea! Maybe it is the black and white view, while most users would accept grey as well to get their system up and running? Cheers Axel [1] https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2017-1-GNU-Gruender-Richard-Stallman-im-Inte... (this is paid content, but it is from the current c't magazine. I would offer to share a private copy, but I dont know if it is legal) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 02.01.2017 10:41, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

Without the FSF, you would very likely not have free (as in freedom) compilers, free (as in freedom) operating systems, free (as in freedom) web browsers, free (as in freedom) text editors, free (as in freedom) web servers, free (as in freedom) games, free (as in freedom) cryptography, and so on.

So you're saying *BSD does not exist. That's a bold statement to make. -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Montag, 2. Januar 2017, 20:41:54 CET schrieb Aleksa Sarai:

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Just out of curiosity: what is wrong (from licensing point of view) with VMware drivers?

I don't know. Good question. I assume that the FSF is not happy, but I don't know if it is the drivers or the virtualization engine.

If they are not happy about GPL2 of VMware drivers (which they apparently aren't, otherwise they wouldn't invent things like GPL3), they are probably not happy about linux kernel as a whole either. :-) (Well, thinking about it, they actually are not very happy about it.)

The reason they aren't happy with Linux is because the upstream version has proprietary code inside it (in the form of .ihex code without corresponding source). And Linus doesn't care (and hasn't cared since the late 90s) -- which is why the FSF supports the Linux-libre project (which de-blobs Linux).

Strange. RMS just claimed that Linux is part of GNU, it uses lots of GNU stuff, and therefore it should be called GNU/Linux. [1]

RMS has never claimed the Linux is "part of GNU" (I can't read the article you linked, but if you've ever seen a talk by him in the past 25 years he makes it very clear that Linux and GNU are separate projects). Yes, GNU is generally distributed with Linux as the kernel, but you can also have GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/Hurd or more recently GNU/NT.

Hm, I have seen several of his presentations (or lets better say - several times more or less the same presentation) , and he made it very clear. Have a look at slide 36ff of [1]

...

The operating system the GNU project had initiated passed away after Linux got more and more successful.

GNU is an operating system. Hurd is a kernel, and so is Linux. GNU still exists (you're running it *right now*, and so am I).

Correct, I should have said 'The hurd kernel passed away' In the interview RMS stated that '...Hurd has lost the race [against Linux], but what matters is that we have a free kernel ...' I could not read from this, that the Kernel except the file foo.bar (proprietary) is part of GNU/Linux. RMS did not distinguish in the presentation nor in the interview.

...

...

And the reason the FSF doesn't like the VMWare drivers is because VMWare the company has *allegedly* infringed on the GPL in the case of busybox (and Linux).

Can someone explain the animosity towards the FSF? We owe a lot to them, and it's not fair to smear them by claiming that the reason why they do not support distributions such as us is because of trivial reasons. Their concerns _are_ legitimate IMHO.

No idea! Maybe it is the black and white view, while most users would accept grey as well to get their system up and running?

Yes, the FSF is incredibly opinionated and many users don't care. My point is that their reasons are not trivial (user freedom is a legitimate problem and it is a huge problem that users don't care about it too). Each time this topic comes up in the IT community, people pretend that the FSF's work is not important ("what we're doing now is good enough, you don't need to go as far as the FSF is proposing") and it really pisses me off.

Without the FSF, you would very likely not have free (as in freedom) compilers, free (as in freedom) operating systems, free (as in freedom) web browsers, free (as in freedom) text editors, free (as in freedom) web servers, free (as in freedom) games, free (as in freedom) cryptography, and so on.

Very true. But coming back to the original subject, and what the project can/should do to make the freedom more visible - I feel from the discussion we have a majority for the proposal that the usage of the non-OSS repo should be an option, not a default. Do we need a poll on that? How do we get it set-up for the next release? Or do we drop it at all? Cheers Axel [1] https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/RMS_Intro_to_FS_TEDx_Slideshow.odp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Administrator wrote:

...

But coming back to the original subject, and what the project can/should do to make the freedom more visible - I feel from the discussion we have a majority for the proposal that the usage of the non-OSS repo should be an option, not a default.

I disagree. You possibly have a majority of the people who’ve commented, which isn’t even close.

Absolutely. I say our (openSUSE's) focus should be a default installation that works and requires a minimum of customization for our typical user. IMHO, making the non-OSS repo an option is just silly and achieves absolutely nothing except potentially unhappy users.

...

Do we need a poll on that? How do we get it set-up for the next release? Or do we drop it at all?

No need to poll, if you want to change it, just do it. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (0.9°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - virtual servers, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Axel Braun wrote:

[...] But coming back to the original subject, and what the project can/should do to make the freedom more visible - I feel from the discussion we have a majority for the proposal that the usage of the non-OSS repo should be an option, not a default.

Do we need a poll on that? How do we get it set-up for the next release? Or do we drop it at all?

1. the audience here is not representative 2. the non-oss repo is not used during installation by default already 3. the installer can't disable the use of specific repos after installation. That would have to be implemented. 4. an enabled non-oss repo doesn't mean packages from it are used 5. not everything in the non-oss repo is closed source software. openttd-opensfx for example is just sound files. IOW the separation of free and non-free components serious is already implemented and _a default openSUSE Leap 42.2 installation only installs packages from the OSS repo_. The official DVDs only contain packages from the OSS repo. So I'd suggest to concentrate and build on those messages rather than wearing out on this enable/disable discussion. As I already wrote elsewhere, fixing patterns-openSUSE to simply not install the non-oss pattern would be a rather quick and easy first step to avoid zypper inr installing non-free things. That strengthens point #4 above. I'm looking forward to a submit request against system:install:head/patterns-openSUSE. cu Ludwig -- (o_ Ludwig Nussel //\ V_/_ http://www.suse.com/ SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Jane Smithard, Graham Norton, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 3 January 2017 at 10:38, Richard Brown wrote:

On 3 January 2017 at 09:55, Ludwig Nussel wrote:

...

IOW the separation of free and non-free components serious is already implemented and _a default openSUSE Leap 42.2 installation only installs packages from the OSS repo_. The official DVDs only contain packages from the OSS repo. So I'd suggest to concentrate and build on those messages rather than wearing out on this enable/disable discussion.

As I already wrote elsewhere, fixing patterns-openSUSE to simply not install the non-oss pattern would be a rather quick and easy first step to avoid zypper inr installing non-free things. That strengthens point #4 above. I'm looking forward to a submit request against system:install:head/patterns-openSUSE.

See SR#447594 https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/448594

SCNR :)

- R

Superseded the SR with https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/448597 Time travelling changelog entry has been fixed - Happy 2017 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

The number of characters typed as part of this thread, from a non-insignificant number of people, is significantly larger than the 187 characters of changelog and 3 removed lines of spec file required to 'resolve' this matter and no longer install the non_oss pattern in openSUSE by default.

Heck, this post, pointing this out, is also longer than the actual change required

If we talked less and did more, where would openSUSE be by 2018?

Lets try to find out.

The discussion is about consensus. openSUSE is a collaborative effort not a fiefdom. For matters such as this I’m happy that there is engaged discussion and I wish more people were contributing. If you wish to help, you could devise a more efficient way to discuss these matters and assess the support for the various competing proposals. The ‘resolution’ you propose doesn’t have the support of the majority of members, so it’s no resolution. The resolution which does have support is to leave it as is. AS I’ve said earlier, constricting people’s freedom to choose because you (or anyone) knows the right answer a priori is a form of dictatorship. It’s especially ironic that you wish to do so in the name of freedom. If you cannot persuade ordinary people, without exaggeration or scare tactics, of the rectitude of your position, then do not try to impose it by force. Yours David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 01/08/2017 09:59 AM, Richard Brown wrote:

On 7 January 2017 at 23:09, Administrator wrote: The change I submitted (and has been accepted) removes the non_oss pattern from the default install. That's all

The non_oss pattern is still available on the media The non_oss repository is still present and enabled by default The non_oss repository does NOT contain any software essential to the installation or the general smooth operation of a users machine The non_oss pattern did NOT install any software by default.

Thats not entirely true. %package non_oss_opt Recommends: gst-fluendo-mp3 Recommends: unrar

In short, the non_oss pattern did nothing besides give people the impression that openSUSE forced non-oss software onto peoples machines by default, when the reality is that we did not.

Well it also enabled mp3 (Recent I think) and rar support out of the box, i'm pretty sure out of the box mp3 support is relatively recent, but its something that many people have complained about openSUSE not having in the past atleast plenty in #SUSE, unrar seems easy enough for people to install if they actually want rar support.

My submission clears up that problem. Now users can pick the pattern only if they want it, just as they have been able to pick the individual software from the non-oss repo.

Well my current proposal on the factory list is to remove the non-oss pattern altogether now as it doesn't really make much sense, that also won't stop you from installing the above packages

Changing anything else might not be worth pursuing. It isn't for me, the technical issue that led to misconceptions has been cleared up. If someone else disagrees and thinks something else needs to be done, I look forward to seeing their submissions.

If people continue complaining about media support i'd consider a submission to add mp3 support back, however given currently it doesn't also support mp4 and that still requires manual action I don't think I will at this stage. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adeliade Australia, UTC+9:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Mon, 2017-01-09 at 21:51 +0800, Karl Cheng wrote:

On 8 January 2017 at 15:04, Simon Lees wrote:

...

Thats not entirely true.

%package non_oss_opt Recommends:     gst-fluendo-mp3 Recommends:     unrar

AFAIK there shouldn't be any more legal issues with MP3 decoding (or soon enough anyway). I'd imagine a fair few people would have existing MP3 files that they'd like to play. Afaik there might be still some patents valid for vbr (variable bitrate), but otherwise it should be ok, and actually might be sent to Factory soonish.

As for unrar, surely there are OSS alternatives for it? I believe unar can deal with RAR files, though the command line options are different. Or 7zip

Cheers Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEwQnJ+Ps8HqIKhK3yWyRdZ/3eaFcFAlhzmLEACgkQWyRdZ/3e aFduQRAAmfwvJfZ+fR0uL8Po9jTfN/02Sh4jzGSE8Vq5UKVG8VX5Zg1fHj72rzJ7 Nu8LjSKwBcRKKPGpDAMifZTMxu6vh13676bNwxFmJNhmuFzkLk34WCB+tHXRJy9A Pp/c10U84hx/ti61n/C74p8Ktwc2Kw/zEBaX2N5wfJsL8qmfv5B044+V9lm6qzAd XaViOIM0Da0aOTxPR/op5mTTbgsDVa/7BIol3H9xoh7JMBJ72IA8fbH+fIY/NdQo CsOhSVOYjD4KRsl9ZC1me49Z1t9OWI189ciJDFyaI7SE+6qQD8JQKGThj2tHwCuF nERgbAfR74cWVPd8H0YYoBZvlJF4w+OOAvaOWvmmh/3/UrZLhdzEGuUD3FQQjXcd JZ8qJzClmVB7LLUM6a4h3dSyEWg3FMYGcVuPUUXaR6AYm4AsMuzUwY/clkp2yGP3 FGEoekUa2wxbqRcHnlIxPAFoMQ2dkcgBDZTIHwffGD/JwY3qZoUivSpoJ+Kkkqit t87l9D+nE+sCMDEzzr2sxqsmczrjoIpIYVZq6PH1UNIt/DzETIscAbpoyoWKcADN Z2Kb4OB5ybFmfEI2Vu7BcSg3n810Dyh+tdACZr07Yb4Oci3JmHLpsHRFT21eNLiW libTHAWe5MVAfErIInrWF9jtFCelb/YkGH3n5QDBG7/PuVeljKM= =sJ0R -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Mon, 2017-01-09 at 15:06 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-01-09 14:51, Karl Cheng wrote:

...

On 8 January 2017 at 15:04, Simon Lees wrote:

...

Thats not entirely true.

%package non_oss_opt Recommends:     gst-fluendo-mp3 Recommends:     unrar

AFAIK there shouldn't be any more legal issues with MP3 decoding (or soon enough anyway). I'd imagine a fair few people would have existing MP3 files that they'd like to play.

Why "few people"? I expect a majority of users to have or use mp3.

That mp3 decoder is the only one that the Fluendo company offers for free. The rest you have to buy.

...

As for unrar, surely there are OSS alternatives for it? I believe unar can deal with RAR files, though the command line options are different.

unrar is the free alternative. Freeware, actually. The RAR code is copyrighted. I am not sure that you understand what "free software" means ...

Cheers Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEwQnJ+Ps8HqIKhK3yWyRdZ/3eaFcFAlhzmmwACgkQWyRdZ/3e aFd6vQ//akWGbLdVFlFFT9lt2A4n+z+QxbGfiYJRtt8kpQqfBrppFrRl6LxoyJ96 15kC3N/qroOzSdi9CBl3XB838o6JToFWZUpKqrFJ+fZ28nzZ9mbj9Ft1RRFAyrDU TZs2hDYx22CJfSPUYvOo1Qi3eo0CWrmAKXM4ZlukGfvmnSj5igoAopfS6ixXW5n4 O0rqqFu1oPQMNoqsHBBTwh3l5m1y8iN9+2pKN+GWtjnhAEEv0A71neGtUFzomTz9 HbSBFfS69lpn7kMMQDNiTROPcVvsfDCr6UyCuuTOUDMxXSKB6/uz6L0HVkh53wBN rJ4o8OeBctvVL/bz2UfXCG1Vlkjv97lwF2p89WD0ja5f6RLCENqOsMMMcixbJlGs CKIbSSPCYfHfBVWCVibIlXecGtHXTujs+TQbjeDTa71t3xwVYCxVWgLawx4y52Qb Ef9W3obeDUoQGmneUJsunfUyy7SQU8RyaCPkGneWkD0eKB712/c186EHIKCWG2v6 QaibwPE61GBy09QotT2PylhdlafuqfHWJs91ZSZlLyOEe6nK8WaA9aqBep78knJw yOslyZdgukeB2cxKlHK4C2NX8+X0IhQf8KRx36UX+qypfBdTBQCMUXdcAPf1U0V3 fk9Mf7/8fd3u8tsc8F2mypqqJz8M0iVTtxvU0G0YmbkU2zYg5wY= =gv7g -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 01/10/2017 12:43 AM, Martin Pluskal wrote:

On Mon, 2017-01-09 at 15:06 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2017-01-09 14:51, Karl Cheng wrote:

...

On 8 January 2017 at 15:04, Simon Lees wrote:

...

Thats not entirely true.

%package non_oss_opt Recommends: gst-fluendo-mp3 Recommends: unrar

AFAIK there shouldn't be any more legal issues with MP3 decoding (or soon enough anyway). I'd imagine a fair few people would have existing MP3 files that they'd like to play.

...

Why "few people"? I expect a majority of users to have or use mp3.

...

That mp3 decoder is the only one that the Fluendo company offers for free. The rest you have to buy.

...

...

As for unrar, surely there are OSS alternatives for it? I believe unar can deal with RAR files, though the command line options are different.

...

unrar is the free alternative. Freeware, actually. The RAR code is copyrighted. I am not sure that you understand what "free software" means ...

To clarify in this case we are talking about open software rather then free software. The non-oss repo contains software that openSUSE can legally distribute but that isn't licensed under an acceptable open source license, the clauses in the unrar license are an example of something that is free as in "beer" but not free as in free/open software as there are restrictions on how the code can be used that are deemed unacceptable by someone who decides these things. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adeliade Australia, UTC+9:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On 9 January 2017 at 08:43, Stephan Kulow wrote:

Am 08.01.2017 um 00:29 schrieb Richard Brown:

...

On 7 January 2017 at 23:09, Administrator wrote:

...

The discussion is about consensus. openSUSE is a collaborative effort not a fiefdom. For matters such as this I’m happy that there is engaged discussion and I wish more people were contributing. If you wish to help, you could devise a more efficient way to discuss these matters and assess the support for the various competing proposals.

The ‘resolution’ you propose doesn’t have the support of the majority of members, so it’s no resolution. The resolution which does have support is to leave it as is.

You seem to have mistaken openSUSE with a democracy

openSUSE is a collaborative effort, a collaborative meritocratic effort. It is not the majority of members, or contributors, or mailinglist posters who decide. It is a project driven by "Those who do, decide"

This is bullshit, sorry. Because "Those who undo, decide too". So without a discussion your rule doesn't make sense. In the end, the majority will win - less people do than undo.

As I stated in the quoted mail "If there was a case of contributors pushing in two different directions, yes, sure, consensus is great" Someone "doing" and then someone else "undoing" is, by definition, contributors pushing in two different directions. In such cases, yes, I agree with you. Consensus is important and discussion is absolutely necessary. But the mindset that consensus must come first is toxic to the long term health of a project like openSUSE. We've seen this for years Coolo, and it leads to serious problems; Paralysis while willing contributors wait for a decision that may never come; Potential contributors scared away from contributing because they think they need to ask permission or gather a broad consensus from lots of scary established contributors like us; These are not problems we can afford to ignore. We need people to feel they are empowered to contribute, and do so with as few barriers in the way. Getting broad support for their change is one such barrier, and most of the time other people don't care about the new contributors change anyway. As a mature project we have enough checks and balances to ensure it doesn't decend into anarchy. When discussion is needed, in any venue, but particularly the mailinglists there is also the additional issue of the "peanut gallery" [1] We have lots of non-contributors who have an opinion and are very happy to share it, but they are not willing or able to do anything to turn their opinion into reality. Their opinions are not necessarily invalid and shouldn't necessarily be ignored, but they often include strongly held concerns based on theory and speculation rather than reality. This noise reduces the efficiency of the whole project and discourages time-limited contributors for paying enough attention to these discussions where consensus is formed. Having people take the 'do first, then discuss' approach at least means any subsequent discussions that appear are framed in the context of the actual contributions, something that actually works and actually exists, which goes a long way towards ensuring the discussions are more productive than debating concepts and theoretical problems. It's not bullshit, it's a healthy mindset for sustainable contributions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_gallery -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi, On 09.01.2017 11:04, Stephan Kulow wrote:

On 09.01.2017 10:40, Richard Brown wrote:

...

Having people take the 'do first, then discuss' approach at least means any subsequent discussions that appear are framed in the context of the actual contributions, something that actually works and actually exists, which goes a long way towards ensuring the discussions are more productive than debating concepts and theoretical problems.

Richard, as a side note, parsing this kind of sentences (the previous paragraph is really only one sentence) is doable, but for me it requires a few cycles until I get a meaning of your thoughts. Please bear with me as none native speaker... maybe it could be said less Shakespearish? ;-)

...

But in his very example, you're the one undoing something. And IMO here *needs* to come discussion first.

I think you guys both have a point, but on this level of discussion that is no 'this' or 'that' in this case. regards, Klaas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-01-09 11:32, Michal Kubecek wrote:

On Monday, 9 January 2017 10:40 Richard Brown wrote:

...

We've seen this for years Coolo, and it leads to serious problems; Paralysis while willing contributors wait for a decision that may never come; Potential contributors scared away from contributing because they think they need to ask permission or gather a broad consensus from lots of scary established contributors like us; These are not problems we can afford to ignore.

I'm afraid the problem of openSUSE is exactly the opposite these days. People pushing controversial changes without asking anyone and in fact even encouraged to do so as anyone opposing the change is labelled an enemy of the progress and silenced with "those who do, decide".

...

But the mindset that consensus must come first is toxic to the long term health of a project like openSUSE.

I don't agree. That mindset is what would be necessary to avoid the chaos and constant breaking of things in the name of "progress". Not every change is good and not every change is progress.

...

Someone "doing" and then someone else "undoing" is, by definition, contributors pushing in two different directions. In such cases, yes, I agree with you. Consensus is important and discussion is absolutely necessary.

That doesn't really happen. Under current project mindset, "undoing" would be automatically (with exception of fixes for obvious regressions) seen as going against the evolution and frown upon. Most often, people don't even dare to revert the changes as they see it as futile in the environment we ended up with and mindset you helped to establish (the one you advocate for here).

...

We need people to feel they are empowered to contribute, and do so with as few barriers in the way. Getting broad support for their change is one such barrier, and most of the time other people don't care about the new contributors change anyway. As a mature project we have enough checks and balances to ensure it doesn't decend into anarchy.

I wanted to write this in response to your previous mail but then I discarded the mail instead to avoid another flame. Now I feel it needs to be said even if it contradicts current openSUSE development doctrine: when changing important things, first question should always be "if", not "when", "how" or "who".

...

When discussion is needed, in any venue, but particularly the mailinglists there is also the additional issue of the "peanut gallery" [1] We have lots of non-contributors who have an opinion and are very happy to share it, but they are not willing or able to do anything to turn their opinion into reality. Their opinions are not necessarily invalid and shouldn't necessarily be ignored, but they often include strongly held concerns based on theory and speculation rather than reality.

And fear of that brought us to environment where voice of users who do not contribute enough is called a noise and ignored as not worthy taking seriously. To distribution of "contributors for themselves" type with user base reflecting this attitude. I don't say that every voice should have the same weight; but simply dismissing majority of users as "peanut gallery" and their opinions as not worthy considering, that's something I would call toxic. Anyway I'm definitely one of those who do not contribute enough so feel free to dismiss this as well.

Thank you! My thoughts exactly. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

Hi all, Am 09.01.2017 um 11:32 schrieb Michal Kubecek:

That doesn't really happen. Under current project mindset, "undoing" would be automatically (with exception of fixes for obvious regressions) seen as going against the evolution and frown upon. Most often, people don't even dare to revert the changes as they see it as futile in the environment we ended up with and mindset you helped to establish (the one you advocate for here).

Exactly. I'm not going to fight windmills, I'm usually just forking the package in my OBS home project or my own OBS instance and keeping the working-for-me setup there.

And fear of that brought us to environment where voice of users who do not contribute enough is called a noise and ignored as not worthy taking seriously. To distribution of "contributors for themselves" type with user base reflecting this attitude. I don't say that every voice should have the same weight; but simply dismissing majority of users as "peanut gallery" and their opinions as not worthy considering, that's something I would call toxic. Anyway I'm definitely one of those who do not contribute enough so feel free to dismiss this as well.

I can only agree to your whole mail. -- Stefan Seyfried "Your mail is 7 pages of printout. Do you seriously expect people that do openSUSE in their free time to read that? Little less Castro, little more JFK..." -- coolo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

...

...

...

...

Just out of curiosity: what is wrong (from licensing point of view) with VMware drivers?

And the reason the FSF doesn't like the VMWare drivers is because VMWare the company has *allegedly* infringed on the GPL in the case of busybox (and Linux).

Do you feel this has anything to do with the question that started this thread (and which you quoted in your e-mail)?

I was providing a more likely explanation for why the FSF doesn't like VMWare, for those who are not aware of VMWare's current status. So it was on-topic because someone asked a question up-thread, and I was trying to answer it.

Off-topicness aside, should we perhaps also drop reiserfs which is (mostly) work of a convicted murderer?

Maybe. But I don't think the two situations are comparable.

...

We owe a lot to them, and it's not fair to smear them by claiming that the reason why they do not support distributions such as us is because of trivial reasons. Their concerns _are_ legitimate IMHO.

The purpose of opinions is to differ. I, for example, can value their contributions to open source ecosystem without feeling an obligation to agree with every single idea they come with or even to join their holy wars.

I didn't ask you to agree with them, I'm asking you (and the people in this thread) to take their concerns seriously. Even if you end up saying "I think these concerns are not as important as these other ones." But just out-and-out saying "I'm not going to take part in their holy wars" is not taking them seriously. -- Aleksa Sarai Software Engineer (Containers) SUSE Linux GmbH https://www.cyphar.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Michal Kubecek wrote:

Off-topicness aside, should we perhaps also drop reiserfs which is (mostly) work of a convicted murderer?

--- The above has no place on a technical list. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 12/21/2016 01:12 AM, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

...

...

...

3. If somewhere in the distro's install we provide a way to opt for non-OSS software, I think it should be an opt-out. It would be fun to be able to have that as an opt-in (to non-free software) because it was not wanted by most, but I think in this case the membership probably cares less about non-OSS stuff the way we do it than they care about using perfect FOSS (I'm certainly open to contradiction here; my sample size is small, being just me, myself, and I). One more prompt during an install seems unnecessary. Perhaps on the summary screen before an install, where the Software is listed, a link could be there to disable the non-OSS packages, so it's nothing more than a click, like enabling sshd and opening the firewall port for it.

I'd rather like to see the extra screen where YaST asks for online repos removed and a generic link to list of online repos embedded into the installation summary screen instead. Those who really want to can disable the non-oss repo there then.

I was also in that discussion with RMS that Axel mentioned at the beginning of the thread (well, I actually started it :-) ). If the final goal is to be "blessed" by the FSF, the solution suggested by Ludwig would not be enough.

In addition, it's still obscuring any such choices from the end user. The additional repos screen is a good place to put such an option at the moment because (as an end user) you don't need to manually go through the repo list and know which ones are proprietary -- there's just a checkbox.

...

The FSF will never endorse (that is, list as free in their site) a distro containing pointers to non-free software. No matter how many information we provide about it being not free or whether it's disabled by default.

This is true. However, we cannot make such a jump in one step. First we start by making proprietary repositories more clearly marked so that users can disable them. Once we get feedback for that, we can consider making it opt-in. Once we get feedback for *that* we can consider removing them from the base install. And once we finally get feedback from that we can consider purging them from OBS.

Will it take time? Yes. Is it worth the work? IMO yes, but I understand that other people wouldn't agree.

...

Not saying we should aim for it (I don't think so), just clarifying expectations.

I think we should ask ourselves what proprietary software we are hosting and how many people actually use it. Given openSUSE's interesting legal position, we're actually one of the more likely mainstream distributions that could make the jump to FSF approval.

Given the openSUSE Project's build tools and systems these days the easiest way to achieve this for those that really care about it is probably to create a new kiwi image that spins a new "libre based off openSUSE" distro that ships the libre-linux kernel (i'm not sure if this is packaged anywhere yet) and has no association with ways to install proprietary software. There is still a long way to go before we can provide the experience most users want without giving them the ability to run free software. As a community project there is also know way we could stop community people from providing a way to access proprietary software packman already exists and this in itself could be enough to block FSF approval which is probably another reason why something separate based off openSUSE and sharing most of its packages would work better. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adeliade Australia, UTC+9:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B