FSF-Approved gNewSense Maintainer Parts Way With Project

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FSF-Approved gNewSense Maintainer Parts Way With Project

The gNewSense that is based on Debian GNU/Linux but comprised entirely of free software without any non-free software support is now without a maintainer...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=No-gNewSense-Maintainer-2019

[Luke_Wolf]

Michael
Might I instead suggest: Maintainer for FSF-Approved gNewSense Parts Way With Project

The title currently implies that the Maintainer is FSF-Approved rather than gNewSense.

[andyprough]

Not sure why this is news, since the distro hasn't released a version since 2014. I know of no one who has used it in years and years.

The gNewSense operating system is one of the few Linux distributions approved by the Free Software Foundation due to its exclusion of proprietary software.

However, some of the most exciting and innovative distros are fully libre - Guix, Hyperbola, Parabola and Purism to name a few. And Trisquel is planning to support numerous architectures when it releases version 9 in the next few months. The level of activity in the libre community has never been as strong as it is now from what I'm seeing.

[Ipkh]

FSF on the whole is a great and worthy organization due to their early contributions to the ecosystem. Their current guidelines are just too strict to work with. GPLv2 was great and GPLv3 just reinforced their ideal edict if everything must be free in all ways, as long as you give back and give up your ip rights. This is what really hurts the OS development when Intel, AMD, Nvidia AMD others can't or won't allow their firmware into open source due to regulatory or business reasons.
It is almost impossible to run an FSF approved OS and software stack with any kind if modern hardware. There is just too much of the base components of a computer that are locked down on proprietary firmware or drivers.

[dungeon]

Not sure why this is news, since the distro hasn't released a version since 2014.

Information sharing about life and death are both "news", if you agree

There is no "olds" word for such information AFIAK

[anarki2]

Supply vs demand. No one escapes that.

[waxhead]

The FSF should have had the balls to endorse Debian. I know that they have explained why the non-free and contrib is a problem, but as long as they are ok with the main repo I think they should at least endorse that part of it. Instead of supporting what strives to be a totally free system it appears like the FSF are in some ways fighting against their own goals.

[kpedersen]

The FSF should have had the balls to endorse Debian.

I used to think that but now I kinda think that the FSF should remain strong and not compromise. If they do it will simply be an endless spiral of "little proprietary but important things" until one day, "Libre" has no real meaning any more.

Companies like System76 and Pine64 are trying to muddy the water by saying that they are Libre... but no I think Libre must be reserved for "true freedom, open hardware", even if we don't ever manage to achieve it in our lifetime.

And its not like Debian *needs* to be endorsed by the FSF at this point. When binary blobs are one day no longer needed to run Linux on typical computers, possibly Debian can the re-apply.

[Vistaus]

Michael
Might I instead suggest: Maintainer for FSF-Approved gNewSense Parts Way With Project

The title currently implies that the Maintainer is FSF-Approved rather than gNewSense.

So the maintainer doesn't have to be approved and can do whatever he wants, even if it clashes with the FSF philosophy?

[waxhead]

I used to think that but now I kinda think that the FSF should remain strong and not compromise. If they do it will simply be an endless spiral of "little proprietary but important things" until one day, "Libre" has no real meaning any more.

Companies like System76 and Pine64 are trying to muddy the water by saying that they are Libre... but no I think Libre must be reserved for "true freedom, open hardware", even if we don't ever manage to achieve it in our lifetime.

And its not like Debian *needs* to be endorsed by the FSF at this point. When binary blobs are one day no longer needed to run Linux on typical computers, possibly Debian can the re-apply.

Yeah , I understand your point - but the way I see it the FSF undermines their own cause. They either support it or don't which make sense if you think totally in binary. However Debian is from FSF's point of view "nearly good enough" and while I agree that "true-libre" is the only correct way forward for Software and information in general (such as Wikipedia for example). I do believe that being a tad less pedantic about it would help boost the contributions to projects such as Debian. The more that uses it the more likely it is that someone will at some point write something free and open.

I myself for example tend to leave out the contrib and non-free repos on the computers I run Debian on. I try to get by with what's there and it usually works quite well. However sometimes hardware needs a package or two from the non-free repos and while I would ideally prefer to not use it , you have to be practical about it as well. So thanks to pulling in a couple of non-free bits I can run everything else from the free repository without having to be pushed into a corned with a more restrictive distro e.g. you can't use your hardware and therefore you don't use the rest of the OS (that is free) either. Some less technical people pick the easy way out and end up using Windows or even Ubuntu to get things working and that is not helping anybody!