4 ms·

Is there a good heuristic to answer this question?

by endgame 10y ago

Avshalom 10y ago
Nix until some intrepid souls set up a large supplemental non-free repo for guix
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Heh, my thinking basically. As Guix is a GNU project, it adheres to FSF definitions of freedom. That means there will be no proprietary drivers or similar in the official repositories.
  - rekado 10y ago
    This is true. We offer deblobbed Linux (linux-libre) by default. However, it is very simple to customise packages, including the kernel package, e.g. to apply patches, use different sources, or to exercise your right to disagree with the Linux libre upstream on what blobs should be deleted from the kernel. That said, I consider freedom by default a feature and it works very well on most of the hardware I use (an exception is an on-board Radeon graphics chip in a desktop machine I don't use much). Creating package variants is almost trivial; it's certainly no harder than, say, customising Emacs. Guix blurs the lines between user and maintainer, so using custom package definitions is a supported use-case. At work even our scientist users create custom packages in case they are not available in Guix upstream yet.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Sounds very similar to my experience with Gobolinux. If the source is packaged sanely (proper support for --prefix or equivalent) a user can roll up a recipe ready for Compile with a single command and a url to the source needed.
wmf 10y ago
Some software is promoted on its merits and some software exists just "because it's GNU" (e.g. Hurd, Guile, Guix, gNewSense, GnuTLS, Shishi, GNUstep, Gnash, etc.). It's pretty safe to ignore the latter kind.
- cyphar 10y ago
  GnuTLS is actually a good thing. OpenSSL has become a monoculture and there's a lot of good reasons to not use it (in addition, the license isn't GPL-compatible so it's a pain to link against in projects too).
- icebraining 10y ago
  Gnash, really? What other open alternative to Adobe's player would you recommend? For example, Gnash is the only way to get Flash support on the Raspberry Pi - is that not valuable?
- davexunit 10y ago
  As someone who works on Guile and Guix in good part because of their technical aspects and friendly community, this comes off as pretty insulting and ignorant.

Is there a good heuristic to answer this question?

by endgame 10y ago

Is there a good heuristic to answer this question?

Avshalom 10y ago

Nix until some intrepid souls set up a large supplemental non-free repo for guix

digi_owl 10y ago
Heh, my thinking basically. As Guix is a GNU project, it adheres to FSF definitions of freedom. That means there will be no proprietary drivers or similar in the official repositories.
- rekado 10y ago
  This is true. We offer deblobbed Linux (linux-libre) by default. However, it is very simple to customise packages, including the kernel package, e.g. to apply patches, use different sources, or to exercise your right to disagree with the Linux libre upstream on what blobs should be deleted from the kernel. That said, I consider freedom by default a feature and it works very well on most of the hardware I use (an exception is an on-board Radeon graphics chip in a desktop machine I don't use much). Creating package variants is almost trivial; it's certainly no harder than, say, customising Emacs. Guix blurs the lines between user and maintainer, so using custom package definitions is a supported use-case. At work even our scientist users create custom packages in case they are not available in Guix upstream yet.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Sounds very similar to my experience with Gobolinux. If the source is packaged sanely (proper support for --prefix or equivalent) a user can roll up a recipe ready for Compile with a single command and a url to the source needed.

wmf 10y ago

Some software is promoted on its merits and some software exists just "because it's GNU" (e.g. Hurd, Guile, Guix, gNewSense, GnuTLS, Shishi, GNUstep, Gnash, etc.). It's pretty safe to ignore the latter kind.

cyphar 10y ago
GnuTLS is actually a good thing. OpenSSL has become a monoculture and there's a lot of good reasons to not use it (in addition, the license isn't GPL-compatible so it's a pain to link against in projects too).
icebraining 10y ago
Gnash, really? What other open alternative to Adobe's player would you recommend? For example, Gnash is the only way to get Flash support on the Raspberry Pi - is that not valuable?
davexunit 10y ago
As someone who works on Guile and Guix in good part because of their technical aspects and friendly community, this comes off as pretty insulting and ignorant.