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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org