Submitted by “The Fedora project is undergoing several changes before the release of its next version. In preparation for Fedora 7, which will fuse the Core and Extra software repositories, Fedora’s developers are auditing the repositories for non-free and non-open software that doesn’t meet the project’s guidelines. Eventually, the project may change its package guidelines to only allow Free Software.”
This means that it is possible that Fedora will be on the GNU Project’s list of Free distros:
http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html#FreeGNULinuxDistributions
This means that it is possible that Fedora will be on the GNU Project’s list of Free distros
Which is important to whom? I’m a pretty adamant supporter of free software, but refusing to distribute proprietary software, even if its completely optional and not installed by default, is pretentious nonsense.
Many users, possibly even the majority of users, require proprietary software to do what they want to do with their computers. There simply exists no free alternative with the equivalent functionality in many cases. Are these users “wrong” for wanting this software? Are they letting us all down by their refusal to limit their possibilities to those provided by free software?
Free software distributions are in many ways a showcase of what we can achieve with free software. But that doesn’t mean that these distributions should deny their users easy access to optional (and clearly marked) proprietary software. Savvy users will figure out how to add non-free repositories, but for novice users, these Puritan values (with their underlying hypocrisy) represent nothing but aggravating hurdles. Free software is supposed to be about ridding computers of these frustrating and patronizing limitations!
From one free software advocate among many, I beg these projects to understand that freedom is a personal ideal. One user’s freedom is another user’s show-stopper. Freedom is about choice, and this includes our individual choice to accept or reject proprietary software on a case-by-case basis. I’m glad that we have distributions that refuse to install proprietary software by default, but I’m upset that some of these distributions don’t give their users the choice to install proprietary software in a straightforward manner. It’s our choice to make, and we can make this choice on our own.
(with their underlying hypocrisy)
There’s nothing hypocritical about being uninterested in non free software and working to see how far free software can be pushed. Of course, that’s not the road for everyone to travel, but live and let live.
It’s our choice to make, and we can make this choice on our own.
Then choose a distro that is meant for people that don’t particularly care about free software! There’s nothing wrong with one or two distros choosing to focus solely on free software. That’s a valid choice for those creating a distro to make, even if it doesn’t satisfy the needs of every user out there.
Demanding that every distro consider the needs of everyone is just, well, hypocritical.
Perhaps there is demand for a distribution that only allows free software. It just seems to me that the subset of the free software community that is only interested in free software is rather small. Fedora is a rather huge project. If it wants to cater to this “free software only” niche, then so be it, but that would be a dramatic reduction in the scope of the project.
However, the hypocrisy I’m referring to is that the majority of Fedora users don’t care about this decision. They’re just going to add whatever non-free repositories they need to get the software they want. This free software only mantra is little more than some sort of lip service–to whom I don’t quite know.
Once again, who cares? I find it hard to believe that the majority of Fedora users care about this hard line against proprietary software. It’s obvious that this decision is catering to a vocal minority that wants a huge community distribution to cater to their needs and nobody else’s. Why don’t they just start their own GNUHat project or something and stop trying to make life just a little bit harder for the vast majority?
Dude, what are you? Like 14 or something?
I’m sure the Fedora Project is dying to be on that page.
There’ll be a dozen people claiming that Fedora “cripples itself” even more and that it will never keep up with the great Ubuntu.
I think Fedora has been doing the right thing, and hundreds of thousands of users seem to appreciate that.
Yet I’ll be hypocritical enough to be welcoming the Codec Buddy.
Or at least, *should not* have anything to do. There are freely licensed codecs for most media formats: Vorbis and Theora to start with, of course, though they are not of much use; but also for mp3 and the various mp4’s, as well as various voice and video codecs for telephony and videocalling. There is possibly even some wma and wmv support, though that I don’t know for sure. Most of these codecs are LGPL, so the problem is not unfree code, but software patent issues.
But, to software patents, we MUST say, fvck them! There is NO WAY to avoid them, and using only Ogg codecs won’t be enough. There are patents on techniques used in the kernel, on web techniques, on GUI features, on database abilities, on virtual machines … the US patent system is so f–ked up that has given patent rights to all kinds of stuff, even the most preposterous.
You just cannot avoid falling into those traps, because like the antipersonal landmines that the US also favors, they are everywhere, they are undocumented, and they are ready to blast when you inadvertently step on them. All you can do is ignore them, completely refrain from programming or, as Microsoft does, always have a few billion dollars in the piggybank to pay their way out of (and into) extortion.
“It is likely that we may change the guidelines to allow only Free Software (as defined by Free Software Foundation) instead of Free and Open Source software, as defined within the guidelines now.”
The criteria for OSI-approved open source and DFSG-free free software are the same AFAIK. There are philosophical and marketing differences, but in practice open source software is free software.
Not all OSI approved licenses are considered Free software by FSF. You would have know that if you had read the following message refered from the article.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-April/msg…
I’ve read that link, but it does not make the distinction you say it does. Have you read it yourself?
While there may be OSI approved licenses that the FSF has not approved, they are very few and not at all in common use. In addition, the reasons they are not approved are based on extremely pedantic interpretations of the Free Software definition.
For all practical purposes, Open Source == Free Software. Contrary to the more radical advocates on the Free Software side, Open Source will NOT damn your soul to hell.
I do heterogeneous supercomputing for the environment.
A number of OpenMotif apps are mission critical for me. I’ve already had to go through altogether too much hassle to install OpenMotif apps on RH based systems.
The effect of this decision is that I will be enforcing a policy that RH based distros are not acceptable on new hardware acquisitions.
fwiw.
Carlie J. Coats, Jr., Ph.D.
Chief Software Architect
Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems, LLC.
although motif’s day is well past its prime, I do realize some commercial software vendors insist on still using it for the UNIX versions of their software (why I don’t know, it’s old, it’s ugly, and there are much better alternatives out there).
that said, have your tried using lesstif on your systems instead? works for us…
As regards using a different distro, I’m not sure what alternatives you think you have. redhat’s about the easiest distro out there to get third party packages compliant with since it is _the_ enterprise linux version that commercial vendors target first and foremost. if these are in-house apps that you’re concerned with, well you should have the source to fix compatibility problems then especially if it just due to the X toolkit their using, right? I don’t think hoping distros is going to be the simple or even best fix to your problems.
“””Not all OSI approved licenses are considered Free software by FSF.”””
True. But this will still axe a few apps.
Fedora already restricts itself (arguably) too much, and splitting hairs by discriminating between OSS and FS is only going to make Fedora less useful… to no perceptible gain.
What’s next? Allow only copylefted software? Maybe have Richard Stallman personally approve and digitally sign each package?
I can respect Fedora’s policy of only FOSS Software, even though I think it makes them *less* effective at promoting the use of FOSS over all. But this is would be fanaticism, and I don’t see that doing Fedora any good at all.
“True. But this will still axe a few apps. ”
Which one? You are just speculating at this point. The couple of licenses that are OSI approved but considered non-free are not popular at all and we dont know a single instance of any package licensed under them. So I dont expect any practical changes at all.
Then why waste the time splitting hairs in the first place? Is it really so important to route out those few “evil” apps that the OSI says are OK, but the FSF doesn’t.
And even if the particular apps don’t happen to be popular, it would still be an inconvenience to those people who do use them… and for what gain?
And if they are *really* all that rarely used, they could be removed for that reason alone, without the need to go on a witch hunt.
It just seems to me that there should be more worth while things to do… like addressing some of the *many* unresolved bugs reports in their bugzilla.
I’ve been told repeatedly in the past that bugs that effected me were not getting attention because of “resource limitations”. Well…
“Then why waste the time splitting hairs in the first place? Is it really so important to route out those few “evil” apps that the OSI says are OK, but the FSF doesn’t. ”
I didnt call them evil. This is a potential very minor change in a longer licensing audit to ensure that Fedora packages are compliant with the guidelines. I am not sure why people are focussing on the minor part.
”
And even if the particular apps don’t happen to be popular, it would still be an inconvenience to those people who do use them… and for what gain? ”
As I said earlier, there is no package that I know of that would need to dropped because of this potential change.
“And if they are *really* all that rarely used, they could be removed for that reason alone, without the need to go on a witch hunt. ”
As long as there are package maintainers willing to maintain them, Fedora wont drop them just because they are rarely used.
”
It just seems to me that there should be more worth while things to do… like addressing some of the *many* unresolved bugs reports in their bugzilla. ”
Resolving bugs have nothing in common with licensing audits. They are not handled by the same people either
”
I’ve been told repeatedly in the past that bugs that effected me were not getting attention because of “resource limitations”. Well…”
This is silly. When FC5 artwork was done some people were upset that Fedora is focussing on art work instead of fixing wireless drivers as if the people doing art are kernel developers. It simply doesnt work that way.
This seems like kind of an odd decision. As a Fedora user, I go to third party repositories to get the non free software. Which means that there will still be a need for a third party repository. So what will change exactly?
This is great news (Free Software Movement that is). I am still stuck to Nvidia closed drivers however. Does anyone know another Graphics Card Manufacturer which will bode well with Free drivers? My problem is I am on a KVM and the free Nvidia drivers just don’t work right. Trying to stay clear of ATI as well.
Intel graphics it is then.
But I hope the Nouveau project will do you some good.
I’ve got an ATi Radeon with an open driver but I can’t say it’s incredibly fast. You’d say those manufacturers are a bunch of losers not to open up specs but they might call it business..
I’ll stick with carefully picking my hardware, for the time being.
I do the same.
You’d say those manufacturers are a bunch of losers not to open up specs but they might call it business..
I think the important part here is that we’re doing the best we can from a number of different angles.
First, the Linux kernel community is reaching out to these vendors in a more unified, direct, and approachable way. We’re doing everything we can, going out of our way (as usual), to demonstrate to these vendors the benefits of collaborating with the kernel community on free software drivers. We’re open to their concerns, we’re ready to work, and we want to make this process as easy and harmonious as possible.
Second, we are leveraging our community to put pressure on these vendors’ biggest customers. We want to make it clear to all OEMs that there is significant demand for Linux PCs. The commercial Linux vendors have made it clear that they are willing to make deals with OEMs to provide top-quality support and hardware certification services to facilitate the distribution of Linux PCs to the consumer and corporate markets. Linux has always been open, but now more than ever we’re open for business.
Finally, we’re innovating around these problems to make our desktop products more appealing to demanding consumers. We’re hard at work developing desktop effects engines that compare favorably with Vista and Tiger with significantly lower hardware requirements. We can even do this on systems with rudimentary open source graphics drivers. We’ve made the entire Linux desktop experience easier, more attractive, and more complete than ever. Ultimately, producing a Linux desktop that appeals to the mainstream is the best way to grow Linux as a platform and to put pressure on hardware and software vendors.
We’re doing our part and then some. The hardware vendors know we’re here, they know we’re a growing community, and they know what we expect from them. They can’t keep us waiting forever, because reverse engineered drivers are as little as months away from reality. As usual, we’ll get what we want, even if we have to do it ourselves.
Edited 2007-03-02 02:24
What type of ATI driver problems are you refering to? I have built several workstations I use and a laptop all with ATI and have had no problems?
Not all OSI approved licenses are considered Free software by FSF.
OK, so there’s OpenMotif. It’s still hard for me to see what the big deal is, but maybe that’s why I’m not an FSF-approved GNU/hairsplitter.
The OpenMotif license is not an Open Source license. Repeat, it is NOT Open Source. If you bother to look, you’ll see that it’s nowhere on the list of OSI approved licenses.
Sounds refreshing! Along with ESR leaving I feel a download and test-run of fedora is in my immediate future!
where does this leave their own stated aims for including firmware for wireless cards?
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureWirelessFirmware
They’ll be leaving binary firmware and support media (logos, fonts, etc) in the distribution.
From what I could understand from their license guidelines [ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines ], firmware is fine as long as it does not “run” within the os (i.e: not emulator ROMS, etc), but rather is only used to enable hardware. Additionally they consider game data (e.g: shareware levels of open source DOOM) in the same manner.
They also have a Content category which makes inclusion of trademarked (e.g: Firefox) media possible, as long as it’s freely redistributable and not enabling any features (i.e: there would be no loss if you did not include Firefox logo).
They’ve also sent these guidelines to FSF for a review, and probably will get approval with minor modifications soon. [ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF ]. (While FSF wants to get rid of binary firmware on the long run, they’re also ready to “overlook” the issue for the time being).
This is from an Ubuntu user. Choice is good. Fedora is a long way from dying. There are users who wants an supports 100% FSF OS.
I am actually looking forward to trying fedora now!
I am actually looking forward to trying fedora now!
Even more than you were three posts ago? Or are you just reaffirming your commitment in case anyone missed it the first time and couldn’t mod you up further?
Yee, let’s start with Xorg! What? You didn’t know it is not free enough for Fedora? WE WANT ALL FREE(read: GPL)- Xorg is MIT/X licensed(read: almost BSD license).
Framebuffer(err. GPL) is OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR!!!
Yee, let’s start with Xorg! What? You didn’t know it is not free enough for Fedora? WE WANT ALL FREE(read: GPL)- Xorg is MIT/X licensed(read: almost BSD license).
Framebuffer(err. GPL) is OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR!!!
Score -3
Yes, I know, truth hurts…
Way to got GPL nazia! Heil Stallman!
this seems odd to me, isn’t this the reverse of how f7 was supposed to be going just a few weeks ago?
i thought they were going the ubuntu way and bundling closed wireless/gfx drivers, then again even ubuntu have gone back on that lately.
i thought core always was free-only software, extras was the, well, extras. maybe merging core and extras means that they need to get rid of a lot of packages to stick to the fsf/usa rules.
if so then that’s a bad move as it makes us even more reliant on 3rd party repo’s, which is where the problems with yum lie.
..with closed source drivers as long as everyone is free to use them? Sorry but I just don’t get what the big deal is. When you buy a tv or a fridge, do you expect to get detailed engineers plans so you can build your own? Does anyone here who feels so strongly about OSS get upset buying their white goods because the plans aren’t open source? What about the black box in your car? Sorry but I genuinely don’t get it.
..with closed source drivers as long as everyone is free to use them? Sorry but I just don’t get what the big deal is.
Well, sure there are more serious issues on the planet.
Say war, oppression, etc.
But if you make a free software project, you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. As you know, a binary blob is impossible to debug.
When you buy a tv or a fridge, do you expect to get detailed engineers plans so you can build your own?
Well, those plans are out there.
Exactly,
I don’t see what the fuss about OSS is or FSS. How many OSS advocates also by car parts and build their own car? Or have the plans for their house? Did they build it themseleves or did a proprietary company build it for them. Do they hunt for their meat? Or raise their own crops? No… they by food from proprietary companies.
The only people that can complain about some computer users using closed source or proprietary software are the ones that do all the other above mentioned things themselves. I’ll bet Stallman bought his own house and grows his own crops, hunts his in meat, etc., etc.! No!!
Coxy: Exactly,
I don’t see what the fuss about OSS is or FSS. How many OSS advocates also by car parts and build their own car? Or have the plans for their house? Did they build it themseleves or did a proprietary company build it for them. Do they hunt for their meat? Or raise their own crops? No… they by food from proprietary companies.
The only people that can complain about some computer users using closed source or proprietary software are the ones that do all the other above mentioned things themselves. I’ll bet Stallman bought his own house and grows his own crops, hunts his in meat, etc., etc.! No!!
Wow, that really made me laugh. Good joke, thank you very much!
isn’t the idea of being a advocate to speak in favor of something or is it to hunt your own deer!?
This is the most ridiculous thread I have seen in a long time.
There is a big difference between proprietary and GNU software.
First of all, the reason why you have software at all, and I am not in jail, is because people have decided to draw the line in the sand and enforce these restrictions so that Linux can exist.
What you are suggesting, is that there is no difference packaging proprietary binaries and source code in one package.
I bet you would change your tune quickly guy if we turned the distro into a binary only package, charged you up the arse for updates and refused to fix bugs in the software.
You would that kind of “choice” buy Vista if you think there is no difference or problem with using and encouraging everyone to just pretend binary only proprietary software doesn’t hurt anything and is just “OK”.
If this is not a problem, really, just use Microsoft Vista. Its got tons of propritary crapola all over the place, and you can still run a lot of GNU software on it.
-Hack
Jeez what a lame reply to my question. Chalk you up as another foaming mouthed Linux Zealot. And that’s from someone who supports it in general. It’s people like you that put me off the whole thing.
As has been said, let’s see you asking Ford for the source to their cars black box, being told no then refusing to buy any car where they refuse your stupid request. It’s business, it’s their car and if you don’t like it hop on your little amish push bike.
Take my computer away and guess what, my life goes on regardless. It’s a box of electronics, nothing more. Try and get out more guy.
No way ! Ever since I am reading Osnews, RH users were quick to diss Suse and others upon every review for not including basic functionality such as codecs, etc.. only because of some licensing issues – I wonder which distri they are switching to now, probably Ubuntu..
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Redhat/fedora has long been one of the more “strict” distros when it comes to stuff like this, eg. the lack of even mp3 support in the past (present?)
long before ubuntu even existed and SUSE was still S.u.S.E., redhat users have been accustomed to having to download their codecs, closed drivers, and other bits from third party repos, such as livna and freshrpms.
Well I started using Linux as of mandrake 9.0 Back then I had a paperweight printer (lbp-660). I think. I threw it away. And I also changed my bank to be able to go online.
Since then I’ve been running different distros. My favorites are Fedora and Debian. I like Fedora but for some reason (this is actually odd since they should be the same) Firefox makes pages crash that don’t crash on Iceweasel. It’s no problem to download iceweasel but I would love to see a freeer distro. The things that bothers me with Sid is that I lack the skills to install gnome 2.16 on that system. (btw the Firefox issue occours on stable systems).
I’ve been running Windows as a secondary system mostly or solely for calendar syncing p990 Outlook.
But since Vista I decide I couldn’t live with that combo. And I’m now on FC 7 test 2 with (livna sorry to say). I think the choices of Fedora are good seriously I don’t get the hype about Ubuntu which I think is the worst distro ever (who can’t live without bong sounds and brown backgrounds and what’s wrong with Debian that can justify the overhyped popularity of Ubuntu with all it’s verses).
In short I’ll benefit from a cleaner Fedora system hopefully with Iceweasel in it. I’ll still use livna packages but I will be aware that I’m doing so. And I’ll probably feel a little guilty.
It would be nice to have Firefox thrown away from fedora. Fedora Is an easy to use distro with package management. If you want it cleaner go Debian. If you’re a scientist engineer or geek in the positive sense go Sourcemage Gentoo or LFS. I think most people and organisations use Fedora for comfort. It’s one of the distros closest to a desktop system and It’ll probably remain that way.
If cars were software then they would break down if you took a certain highway or loose their backseat doors if you took the interstate… Or go in reverse if you reached a certain speed trashing the car:) oops that one actually did happen. But OS’es whether proprietary or not are probably the most complex software And I think it makes sense open source Simply because we’re at a crossroad where it’s too complex for one company to handle. IMO: If the software on Linux based platforms was not free / open it would still be a classic example of a divide and conquerer strategy. However such a strategy is only obtainable through a certain degree of openness “Open Source” becomes a given. However closed software will always co-exist.
All I needed Linux for was to mount Solaris UFS and write it onto OS X HFSX+.
I started of with SimplyMepis since it is ubuntu-based but had a KDE-environment by default, kernel however was 2.6.15 and noone seemed to know how to dist-upgrade to the latest beta and there where no easy to find 2.6.16 or newer kernels (needed for HFSX/Case sensetive HFS) and I didn’t wanted to build a kernel myself since someone from them “bragged” about how mepis kernel could run ubuntu packages but not the opposit, does it need special kernel tuning/features? Then I wouldn’t care for it.
So I installed Fedora Core 6 since it came with 2.6.18 kernel.
It booted, it worked, but my graphics card didn’t in OS X so I wanted to actually use the OS except mount + tar/cp so I started to try install some packages, which resulted in me trying to figure out where the fsck to find any mirrors and how to use them. After a while I think I managed to set one with baseurl= .. in /etc/whatever and so on, but it was still slow as shit at around 30kB/s (I have 100mbps..)
Anyway, let it upgrade over night, rebooted… It boots, it stops at loading some firewall shit (Even thought I had disabled it from within the OS earlier)
Yeah! Great! I wont mess with broken OSes, RPM is slow and shit aswell.
How come all linux dists suck? And how come most of them and Solaris uses Gnome instead of KDE?
FreeBSD as free software desktop ftw, Solaris as server, and OS X as rich mans desktop =P
I couldn’t figure out if you were retarded or just making shit up. Then we got here.
It booted, it worked, but my graphics card didn’t in OS X so I wanted to actually use the OS except mount + tar/cp so I started to try install some packages, which resulted in me trying to figure out where the fsck to find any mirrors and how to use them. After a while I think I managed to set one with baseurl= .. in /etc/whatever and so on, but it was still slow as shit at around 30kB/s (I have 100mbps..)
Yep making shit up. Fedora, all the way back to version 2, doesn’t set a baseurl. The default points to a mirror list, which will keep hitting mirrors until it finds one that works. Now it’s theoretically possible that every single Fedora mirror on the planet decided to go down all at once, but then it’s also theoretically possible that my wife is going to bring home some hot blonde chick and suggest a threesome. Neither are likely.