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> You are right in principle that FLOSS apps can and do have telemetry/surveillance included Note that I was just replying to your "Firefox is non-free" statem

by jraph 2y ago

> You are right in principle that FLOSS apps can and do have telemetry/surveillance included Note that I was just replying to your "Firefox is non-free" statement, not to this. I do agree that the tracking story is way better when using free software in general (but that indeed, it's not a guarantee, especially when using official installers from sloppy software editors). ---- Code that is under a free software license that downloads (and runs) non-free software is still free software. This can be seen as an anti-feature, F-droid would call this one "Non-Free Addon" [1], but this is a separate matter. For a distro to be approved by the FSF, it needs to only include free software, and also match additional, more restrictive criteria such as, indeed, not promoting non-free software. But this doesn't qualify some specific software, it qualifies a distribution. In addition to DRM, Firefox also has other issues, including these: - it allows non-free addons on its extension repository, and even recommends (promotes) some of them (also Non-Free Addons) - it includes features that depends on non-free services, like pocket (Non-Free Network Services [2]) I don't like them, but that doesn't make Firefox proprietary. Worst case, it isn't suitable as is for a FSF-approved distro. Which, again, goes beyond the quality of being free software. The fsf.org blog post you link to (which I'm also familiar with) shares concerns (which I mostly share, indeed), but doesn't state that it makes Firefox non-free software. There's one point that I would debate from this link: > We agree with Cory Doctorow that there is no meaningful distinction between 'installing DRM' and 'installing code that installs DRM.' The distinction is meaningful, because embedding the DRM code in Firefox itself would make Firefox non free. However I agree that it makes Firefox promote horrible software without even warning the user, which is not great at all. tl;dr: The concepts of FSF-approved distro and free software should not be mixed up. They are both useful but separate concepts. I could even see someone being full pro free software but thinking that FSF-approved distro goes too far. [1] https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#NonFreeAdd https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#NonFreeAdd [2] https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#NonFreeNet https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#NonFreeNet

fsflover 2y ago
> But this doesn't qualify some specific software, it qualifies a distribution. I never thought about it. Why wouldn't it be the same for any software? A distribution is nothing else but a (large) set of software. Do you think one could find a software that downloads something nonfree in the FSF Free Software Directory? I do not expect that. Nowadays, in our connected world, it doesn't matter if the software nonfree or it downloads a nonfree piece. It's effectively the same thing.
- jraph 2y ago
  You could extend the criteria for fsf-approved distributions to extensible software, it would make sense. Then you'd have free software, and then fsf-approved software, a subset of the former. I guess they defined criteria for distributions specifically because they needed to provide guidance to people building distributions. You have to be specific to be clear and useful, many things are probably irrelevant to general software. > Nowadays, in our connected world, it doesn't matter if the software nonfree or it downloads a nonfree piece. It's effectively the same thing. Well, for me a line is definitely crossed between the proprietary code never reaching my computer or the code sitting here. I'm personally comfortable with an option to download proprietary software that is disabled by default. I'm quite comfortable with Debian offering me to install non free firmware as long as it's optional and clear. I'm fine with its documentation mentioning non-free software as long as it's clearly marked as well (and done reluctantly). Of course I would not be happy with Debian's wiki recommending proprietary software left and right. But I think forbidding to share some knowledge goes a bit too far (it is borderline censorship), and is not even practical: even Purism recommended a way to upgrade the Intel microcode when spectre and meltdown were discovered and mitigated [1]. Although they claim that the patch isn't part of PureOS, they are the ones maintaining the distro, it feels close enough and quite artificial for an update of something that's already running in the CPU anyway. I believe that it was quite clever of RMS not to try to put those restrictions in the free software definition. > Do you think one could find a software that downloads something nonfree in the FSF Free Software Directory? I do not expect that. Typically, Firefox with the non-free extensions. We need a pure message from the fsf, but I don't believe the fsf-approved distro criteria help a lot, they are so impractical (and borderline undesirable imho for the censorship part) that if free software oriented distros like Debian and Fedora respected them, the free software movement would probably be weaker, with way fewer people being able to switch to a free distro. It would possibly be counter productive, because there would probably be fewer people helping other switch, and working on free replacements. It's a tradeoff: too many compromises dilute and weaken or even cancel the message. Too few makes the message irrelevant to too many people. And I don't believe discussing solutions based on proprietary software is compromising if done correctly. You at least need to know what to reverse engineer to produce a free alternative. Convincing people that free software is the right way to handle computers is important, and it is far more effective if it is within their reach. Migrating from windows or Mac to a (GNU/)Linux distro but with non-free firmware is already a net win. If the alternative is to just stay on windows, that's possibility way fewer people convinced that free software is the right way to do stuff, and possibility fewer people working on getting rid of proprietary software. It's complicated. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/purism-patches-meltdown-and-spectre-variant-2-both-included-in-all-new-librem-laptops/ https://puri.sm/posts/purism-patches-meltdown-and-spectre-va...

by jraph 2y ago

fsflover 2y ago

> But this doesn't qualify some specific software, it qualifies a distribution. I never thought about it. Why wouldn't it be the same for any software? A distribution is nothing else but a (large) set of software. Do you think one could find a software that downloads something nonfree in the FSF Free Software Directory? I do not expect that. Nowadays, in our connected world, it doesn't matter if the software nonfree or it downloads a nonfree piece. It's effectively the same thing.

jraph 2y ago
You could extend the criteria for fsf-approved distributions to extensible software, it would make sense. Then you'd have free software, and then fsf-approved software, a subset of the former. I guess they defined criteria for distributions specifically because they needed to provide guidance to people building distributions. You have to be specific to be clear and useful, many things are probably irrelevant to general software. > Nowadays, in our connected world, it doesn't matter if the software nonfree or it downloads a nonfree piece. It's effectively the same thing. Well, for me a line is definitely crossed between the proprietary code never reaching my computer or the code sitting here. I'm personally comfortable with an option to download proprietary software that is disabled by default. I'm quite comfortable with Debian offering me to install non free firmware as long as it's optional and clear. I'm fine with its documentation mentioning non-free software as long as it's clearly marked as well (and done reluctantly). Of course I would not be happy with Debian's wiki recommending proprietary software left and right. But I think forbidding to share some knowledge goes a bit too far (it is borderline censorship), and is not even practical: even Purism recommended a way to upgrade the Intel microcode when spectre and meltdown were discovered and mitigated [1]. Although they claim that the patch isn't part of PureOS, they are the ones maintaining the distro, it feels close enough and quite artificial for an update of something that's already running in the CPU anyway. I believe that it was quite clever of RMS not to try to put those restrictions in the free software definition. > Do you think one could find a software that downloads something nonfree in the FSF Free Software Directory? I do not expect that. Typically, Firefox with the non-free extensions. We need a pure message from the fsf, but I don't believe the fsf-approved distro criteria help a lot, they are so impractical (and borderline undesirable imho for the censorship part) that if free software oriented distros like Debian and Fedora respected them, the free software movement would probably be weaker, with way fewer people being able to switch to a free distro. It would possibly be counter productive, because there would probably be fewer people helping other switch, and working on free replacements. It's a tradeoff: too many compromises dilute and weaken or even cancel the message. Too few makes the message irrelevant to too many people. And I don't believe discussing solutions based on proprietary software is compromising if done correctly. You at least need to know what to reverse engineer to produce a free alternative. Convincing people that free software is the right way to handle computers is important, and it is far more effective if it is within their reach. Migrating from windows or Mac to a (GNU/)Linux distro but with non-free firmware is already a net win. If the alternative is to just stay on windows, that's possibility way fewer people convinced that free software is the right way to do stuff, and possibility fewer people working on getting rid of proprietary software. It's complicated. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/purism-patches-meltdown-and-spectre-variant-2-both-included-in-all-new-librem-laptops/ https://puri.sm/posts/purism-patches-meltdown-and-spectre-va...