[Arm-netbook] eoma68-jz4775 x-ray pictures

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
http://rhombus-tech.net/ingenic/jz4775/news/
this is totally cool, photos of the x-ray machine and the DDR3 and
jz4775 SoC. of the six samples made, only one did not have bridging
between the DDR3 ICs, so i asked the factory if they'd like to get
some experience at sorting out BGA ICs, which they did - here's the
results, and they look great.

Good news! That machine looks like something everyone should have at home. I
particularly like the typeface used for "X-RAY". ;-)

I suppose you're now part way through your planet-roaming exercise, and I was
going to ask how things had been progressing.

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-25 11:24:46 UTC

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Post by Paul Boddie

Good news! That machine looks like something everyone should have at home.

yeah! eeveryone should be making PCBs at home... :)

Post by Paul Boddie
I particularly like the typeface used for "X-RAY". ;-)

Post by Paul Boddie
I suppose you're now part way through your planet-roaming exercise, and I was
going to ask how things had been progressing.

ok - we have a daughter, lilyana, so decided to stay here in den haag
for another month.

the casework which i 3d-printed and assembled in translucent black
and "robot silver" from faberdashery looks absolutely superb, a few
niggles to resolve but that's fine: it's good enough to send to
crowdsupply, where they have a professional studio so will take some
pictures, and we can start the crowdfunding campaign in a few weeks.
joshua is giving a talk on may 18th so wants to be able to include the
libre laptop in that.

now, as far as picking OSes is concerned that are FSF-Endorseable,
we've got an interesting situation where we'll need some porting and
packaging help. there basically aren't any good libre OSes for ARM
(due to canonical's recent blatant GPL violations and record on
privacy, those based on ubuntu *not* being "good", plus trisquel is
currently based on ubuntu 8.04 which doesn't have an ARM port), and
the only one for MIPS is gnewsense and that's been custom-targetted at
the leemote laptop.

the thing is though, that the current situation for
FSF-Endorseability of hardware is even worse than it appears, due to
the simple fact that there *aren't* any modern FSF-Endorseable x86
processors.... period. *all* intel processors of the past 15 years
require a proprietary RSA-signed piece of firmware in order to boot,
and all AMD processors require a licensed proprietary piece of
firmware from Intel because AMD licensed intel's HDMI interface.

so... err.... basically, the approach that i'm taking, slow as it's
progressing, actually stands to be the first modern "Good Enough
Computing" [1] hardware that *can* actually be FSF-Endorsed.

aside from that, i'm also focussing quite a lot on the portable 3d
printer, which is going to be a critical tool that i will need over
the next year. the current version is around 450x410x200mm when
stowed, and i'm working on a second version that's around
440x360x155mm. i've ordered various bits, which include something
called a Flex3Drive, it's based around an automotive-grade flexible
shaft, 800mm long, that can transfer the power of the extruder stepper
motor down to where the filament hot-end is, so that the hot-end can
be lightweight and move very fast, whilst at the same time remaining
accurate.

i don't know if you're familiar with 3d printers but there's two main
designs (now three) - "direct drive" where you have the stepper (400g)
mounted on the carriage. that gets thrown around a bit like a brick,
at high speed, and it causes problems unless you're happy to run
slowly. then there's "bowden" which is where you put in a teflon
tube 800mm long and you push the filament all the way down that. it
means that the carriage can be as light as 150 grams (less in the case
of delta printers), but the problem is you get flex in the tube, and
any compression in the filament due to its material properties is
amplified hugely.

the Flex3Drive solves all that, combining the best of both worlds.
when i read up on it i went "wow! someone who clearly knows what
they're doing!" :) so with that and a "Volcano" set for the hotend i
should be able to do reliable, high-quality prints at around 3x the
speed of most reprap printers, in a small and compact space. it's a
lot of fun and i should get on with it, so much to do.

l.

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-real-reason-for-the-pc-sales-plunge-the-era-of-good-enough-computing/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_good_enough

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Hrvoje Lasic

2016-04-25 11:37:43 UTC

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
ok - we have a daughter, lilyana, so decided to stay here in den haag
for another month.

We are at the moment at Rockstart accelerator (Amsterdam) in current smart
energy program. If you will be at any time in Amsterdam will gladly have a
beer if you have time.

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-25 12:05:38 UTC

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by Hrvoje Lasic

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
ok - we have a daughter, lilyana, so decided to stay here in den haag
for another month.

We are at the moment at Rockstart accelerator (Amsterdam) in current smart
energy program. If you will be at any time in Amsterdam will gladly have a
beer if you have time.

cool! nice idea. oo that rockstart thing looks fun. might make a
trip over, see what's going on. anyone doing either ultra-efficient
engine design or eco-conscious computing devices? i wouldn't have
been able to apply due to their requirement to have a
pathologically-profit-maximising limited company (which directly
conflicts with and totally over-rides the ethical and environmental
angles, and i cannot ever sign up to something that i've assessed in
advance to be in "conflict") but it would be nice to see what people
are up to.

l.

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Hrvoje Lasic

2016-04-25 13:52:10 UTC

actually, smart energy kind of have ethical angle but still you are
supposed to make also profitable business. What Rockstart is good at, it is
very networked and supportive environment, they have large pool of mentors
and they really try to help you about making business and implementing lean
methods in creating business. If you have idea what you would like to find
out maybe I can try to organize you some meetings around specific ppl.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by Hrvoje Lasic

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
ok - we have a daughter, lilyana, so decided to stay here in den haag
for another month.

We are at the moment at Rockstart accelerator (Amsterdam) in current

smart

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
energy program. If you will be at any time in Amsterdam will gladly have

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
beer if you have time.

cool! nice idea. oo that rockstart thing looks fun. might make a
trip over, see what's going on. anyone doing either ultra-efficient
engine design or eco-conscious computing devices? i wouldn't have
been able to apply due to their requirement to have a
pathologically-profit-maximising limited company (which directly
conflicts with and totally over-rides the ethical and environmental
angles, and i cannot ever sign up to something that i've assessed in
advance to be in "conflict") but it would be nice to see what people
are up to.
l.
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*www.vebbu.co <http://www.vebbu.co>*

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-25 14:55:26 UTC

actually, smart energy kind of have ethical angle but still you are supposed
to make also profitable business.

my point is: unless you have specifically negotiated with the VCs to
be permitted to go with a non-standard Company Articles of
Incorporation, the priority is, by law, the other way round.

CICs in the UK, and in the USA "Benefit Corporations", have *legally*
within the Articles of Incorporation, the right to prioritise other
matters such as ethical and environmental priorities. actually they
go something like this, in order of LEGALLY-BINDING priority:

PRIORITY 1: do not make a loss
PRIORITY 2: focus on ethical and environmental priorities
PRIORITY 3: make a profit.

as these things directly conflict with "Investor Interests", in the
UK there's actually legal requirements that prevent and prohibit
"Holding Corporations" from owning CICs. however, a CIC "Holding
Company" may own a straight "Corporation" or even a PLC as an asset.

there's quite a lot involved but in essence, CICs and Benefit
Corporations are the right vehicle for eco-conscious business.
standard corporations are basically flat-out lying through their
teeth. when the chips are down, the priority is PROFIT not
ENVIRONMENT or ETHICs.

this is a simple flat-out undeniable fact, one that, sadly, many "eco
incubators" are simply, put, completely ignorant of.

What Rockstart is good at, it is very
networked and supportive environment, they have large pool of mentors and
they really try to help you about making business and implementing lean
methods in creating business. If you have idea what you would like to find
out maybe I can try to organize you some meetings around specific ppl.

i think the main question i'd like to establish is whether they
understand the importance of using CICs (or equivalent) for
eco-conscious business. otherwise, being flat-out blunt, they're
basically deceiving absolutely every single company that they've got
an 8% stake in.

l.

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Hrvoje Lasic

2016-04-25 15:28:27 UTC

One of the company involved in this year program also actually think to be
organized as "Benefit Corporation". They are from Italy and as I understood
in Italy this is possible (one of the very few countries) and their
business idea is strongly socially oriented. I didn't ask myself if this is
legally possible - good question. I guess that you would have to discuss it
with some legal person and as Rockstart is partially financed from Dutch
lottery (which is by definition charity) maybe they will agree (also to be
honest many of ppl around Rockstart are already proven entrepreneurs and
they dont look for money, they really like idea of helping star-ups and to
be involved in this community). So, your main question needs to be
discussed.

However, in later stage when you actually need investment to scale it
might be more difficult to raise money (from simple reason that investor
ask for profit - this is truth). It may need some other means to raise
money for your company. There are some social funds (on London stock
exchange as I understood) in UK where there is money for such a companies
and one of our mentor has company that they look for money in this
particular fond.

Between priority 1 and 3 there is little difference. If you are able to
make business that has no losses, you might do some profit as well (and
reinvest it in your idea again of course).

Post by Hrvoje Lasic

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
actually, smart energy kind of have ethical angle but still you are

supposed

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
to make also profitable business.

my point is: unless you have specifically negotiated with the VCs to
be permitted to go with a non-standard Company Articles of
Incorporation, the priority is, by law, the other way round.
CICs in the UK, and in the USA "Benefit Corporations", have *legally*
within the Articles of Incorporation, the right to prioritise other
matters such as ethical and environmental priorities. actually they
PRIORITY 1: do not make a loss
PRIORITY 2: focus on ethical and environmental priorities
PRIORITY 3: make a profit.
as these things directly conflict with "Investor Interests", in the
UK there's actually legal requirements that prevent and prohibit
"Holding Corporations" from owning CICs. however, a CIC "Holding
Company" may own a straight "Corporation" or even a PLC as an asset.
there's quite a lot involved but in essence, CICs and Benefit
Corporations are the right vehicle for eco-conscious business.
standard corporations are basically flat-out lying through their
teeth. when the chips are down, the priority is PROFIT not
ENVIRONMENT or ETHICs.
this is a simple flat-out undeniable fact, one that, sadly, many "eco
incubators" are simply, put, completely ignorant of.

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
What Rockstart is good at, it is very
networked and supportive environment, they have large pool of mentors and
they really try to help you about making business and implementing lean
methods in creating business. If you have idea what you would like to

find

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
out maybe I can try to organize you some meetings around specific ppl.

i think the main question i'd like to establish is whether they
understand the importance of using CICs (or equivalent) for
eco-conscious business. otherwise, being flat-out blunt, they're
basically deceiving absolutely every single company that they've got
an 8% stake in.
l.
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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-25 16:10:34 UTC

---
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Post by Hrvoje Lasic
One of the company involved in this year program also actually think to be
organized as "Benefit Corporation". They are from Italy and as I understood
in Italy this is possible (one of the very few countries) and their business
idea is strongly socially oriented. I didn't ask myself if this is legally
possible - good question. I guess that you would have to discuss it with
some legal person and as Rockstart is partially financed from Dutch lottery
(which is by definition charity)

iinteresting.

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
However, in later stage when you actually need investment to scale it might
be more difficult to raise money (from simple reason that investor ask for
profit - this is truth). It may need some other means to raise money for
your company.

well, let's think about it. you're an eco-company. you want some
money, and you want to pursue ethical and/or eco priorities, do you
*really* want to completely abandon all those principles, on which,
basically the *entire company is based*, just to receive some money??

surely it would be better to explain to the investors that in order
to achieve the goal of being profitable whilst prioritising
eco-responsibility, that the investors need to accept that the ethical
and eco priorities *are* the top priorities, yes?

and good investors - the ones that have the environment as a priority
over profit in their minds, will go "hmm, you're right. actually,
i've been looking for people just like you - here's a billion
dollars".

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Between priority 1 and 3 there is little difference.

it's a huge difference, that's only really noticeable when the
financial pressure is on (such as shareholder fights that result in
EGMs looking for good reasons to fire - or impeach - the Directors).
a standard company that has an "Eco" policy or, as best illustrated in
Professor Yunus' book "Creating a World Without Poverty", has a
"Corporate Social Responsibility" policy, such policies are actually
"Corporate Financial *IRR*esponsibility".

remember, Directors are *legally* required to pathologically enact
the Articles of Incorporation. if you have not done so - for example
by pursuing an "ethical business model" instead of "profit
maximisation as clearly stated in the Articles of Incorporation", you
can be prosecuted, receive a criminal record, and be struck off from
ever being a Director.

it's a huge difference that is only really noticeable if you
investigate it in depth.

l.

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Paul Boddie

2016-04-25 13:07:59 UTC

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
now, as far as picking OSes is concerned that are FSF-Endorseable,
we've got an interesting situation where we'll need some porting and
packaging help. there basically aren't any good libre OSes for ARM
(due to canonical's recent blatant GPL violations and record on
privacy, those based on ubuntu *not* being "good", plus trisquel is
currently based on ubuntu 8.04 which doesn't have an ARM port), and
the only one for MIPS is gnewsense and that's been custom-targetted at
the leemote laptop.

Debian is available for mipsel. If it weren't, I wouldn't be able to put it on
the Ben NanoNote (jz4725) and there probably wouldn't be any cross-compilers
in Debian for mipsel, either. I can't say much about the desktop stack here
because the Ben doesn't have enough memory to run something like KDE. ;-)

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the thing is though, that the current situation for
FSF-Endorseability of hardware is even worse than it appears, due to
the simple fact that there *aren't* any modern FSF-Endorseable x86
processors.... period. *all* intel processors of the past 15 years
require a proprietary RSA-signed piece of firmware in order to boot,
and all AMD processors require a licensed proprietary piece of
firmware from Intel because AMD licensed intel's HDMI interface.
so... err.... basically, the approach that i'm taking, slow as it's
progressing, actually stands to be the first modern "Good Enough
Computing" [1] hardware that *can* actually be FSF-Endorsed.

There's been a discussion on the FSFE discussion list about this, with someone
advocating the POWER architecture for high-end products as an alternative to
x86(-64). I think people are realising that they might need some other irons
in the fire.

http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-25 13:34:15 UTC

---
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Post by Paul Boddie
Debian is available for mipsel.

... but debian isn't FSF-Endorseable, because it's made far too easy
to install non-free proprietary firmware, and the practice is
generally supported and accepted by the debian community, actively
mentioned on the website as being possible, and many many other things
that are completely and directly at odds with and in contravention of
everything that the FSF stands for. technically and specifically: the
default debian archive keyring includes by default the GPG keyring for
the "nonfree" repository.

that having been said, debian is a first step. if debian works, then
anything else will as well. if we made a special GPG archive keyring
package where "nonfree" was specifically excluded, then that would be
a reasonable first step towards making it possible for debian to be
FSF-Endorseable.

Post by Paul Boddie
If it weren't, I wouldn't be able to put it on
the Ben NanoNote (jz4725) and there probably wouldn't be any cross-compilers
in Debian for mipsel, either. I can't say much about the desktop stack here
because the Ben doesn't have enough memory to run something like KDE. ;-)

yehh but it's fuuuun, i love the nanonote.

Post by Paul Boddie
There's been a discussion on the FSFE discussion list about this, with someone
advocating the POWER architecture for high-end products as an alternative to
x86(-64). I think people are realising that they might need some other irons
in the fire.

great! yes, there's a powerpc laptop team out there.

Post by Paul Boddie
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html

oo that's quite an interesting discussion. if you get a chance to
mention again that there's a MIPS (jz4775 with 2gb RAM) CPU Card in
the pipeline, and that the whole exercise is just to be able to drop
in better CPU Cards later, that would help enormously. also that i've
been speaking recently to Josh Gay, and he says they're really excited
about the whole EOMA68 libre laptop concept.

l.

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Elena ``of Valhalla''

2016-04-28 07:55:24 UTC

Post by Paul Boddie
Debian is available for mipsel.

... but debian isn't FSF-Endorseable,

but its main repository has been recognised as a valid distribution to
use to check whether some bit of hardware is compatibile with free
software:

https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-users-find-the-hardware-they-need

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-28 08:10:54 UTC

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On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 8:55 AM, Elena ``of Valhalla''

Post by Paul Boddie
Debian is available for mipsel.

... but debian isn't FSF-Endorseable,

but its main repository has been recognised as a valid distribution to
use to check whether some bit of hardware is compatibile with free
https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-users-find-the-hardware-they-need

ah good find elena.

"While the FSF does not include Debian on this list because the
Debian project provides a repository of nonfree software, the FSF does
acknowledge that Debian's main repository, which by default is the
only place packages come from, is completely free."

i've been speaking with josh gay very recently, so the FSF
Endorsement criteria are very clear to me: basically, josh explained
that by allowing people to have an RYF Certification, they are in
effect promoting the FSF "Trademark", and are therefore DIRECTLY
working as agents for and on behalf of the FSF.

if there is *anything*that could potentially bring that trademark and
the FSF into disrepute, then they simply cannot take the risk of
giving you an RYF Certificate.

examples of that would be:

* the main landing page selling the RYF-Endorsed product downloads
and executes arbitrary non-free programs (usually javascript but java
and flash would count as well) in the end-user's web browser.

* the product contains "temptations" to install proprietary programs
(such as, there's only exclusively non-free hardware functionality
available) and the process by which installation of that non-free
proprietary software is not only easy but is *ACTIVELY* encouraged.

so on that score, for example, ubuntu is totally... ahh.... {insert
appropriate term here}.

however, debian definitely counts as well, because by installing
synaptics package manager (which is easy), you can then add "non-free"
repositories (easy), then (easily) download non-free programs. and
that would bring the FSF's entire Charter and purpose into disrepute.

i have to check, but my feeling is, if they removed the nonfree GPG
keyring from the standard debian-archive-keyring package and placed it
into a debian-archive-keyring-nonfree package, which *wasn't* signed
by default in a special version of debian-installer, All Would Be Well
In FSF Land.

of course, standard debian-installers would then have _two_ keyring
packages to download.

all of this i should actually be able to code up myself, by redoing
that initial package and making sure that there's a separate
(overriding) repository with pinning on that replacement
debian-archive-keyring package. means recompiling debian-installer
but that's cool.

l.

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Philip Hands

2016-04-29 07:59:33 UTC

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
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On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 8:55 AM, Elena ``of Valhalla''

Post by Paul Boddie
Debian is available for mipsel.

... but debian isn't FSF-Endorseable,

ah good find elena.
"While the FSF does not include Debian on this list because the
Debian project provides a repository of nonfree software, the FSF does
acknowledge that Debian's main repository, which by default is the
only place packages come from, is completely free."
i've been speaking with josh gay very recently, so the FSF
Endorsement criteria are very clear to me: basically, josh explained
that by allowing people to have an RYF Certification, they are in
effect promoting the FSF "Trademark", and are therefore DIRECTLY
working as agents for and on behalf of the FSF.
if there is *anything*that could potentially bring that trademark and
the FSF into disrepute, then they simply cannot take the risk of
giving you an RYF Certificate.
* the main landing page selling the RYF-Endorsed product downloads
and executes arbitrary non-free programs (usually javascript but java
and flash would count as well) in the end-user's web browser.
* the product contains "temptations" to install proprietary programs
(such as, there's only exclusively non-free hardware functionality
available) and the process by which installation of that non-free
proprietary software is not only easy but is *ACTIVELY* encouraged.
so on that score, for example, ubuntu is totally... ahh.... {insert
appropriate term here}.
however, debian definitely counts as well, because by installing
synaptics package manager (which is easy), you can then add "non-free"
repositories (easy), then (easily) download non-free programs. and
that would bring the FSF's entire Charter and purpose into disrepute.
i have to check, but my feeling is, if they removed the nonfree GPG
keyring from the standard debian-archive-keyring package and placed it
into a debian-archive-keyring-nonfree package, which *wasn't* signed
by default in a special version of debian-installer, All Would Be Well
In FSF Land.
of course, standard debian-installers would then have _two_ keyring
packages to download.
all of this i should actually be able to code up myself, by redoing
that initial package and making sure that there's a separate
(overriding) repository with pinning on that replacement
debian-archive-keyring package. means recompiling debian-installer
but that's cool.

You wouldn't need to recompile anything, I suspect -- you _might_ need to
replace the relevant udeb, or you can probably do some sort of (possibly
somewhat disgusting) kludge via preseeding.

Most probably, if you have a sensible patch, it could be made into
preseedable debconf variable ("fsf-endorsable-mode"?).

Of course, the fact that is an option that could be turned off means
that it's not going to satisfy the people that want Debian to make it so
that some of our users will be unable to use their (crappy and annoying)
hardware. So, it's probably not worth bothering with.

Debian will not make the experience worse for those users, to no real
benefit to other users, because we have a Social Contract that ensures
that we will not get in the way of people that want to use our software
for things that we almost certainly disagree with.

Apparently some people think it's important to make Debian a tiresome
experience for those that were foolish enough to no know the exact
chipset that was going to be in whatever hardware they bought, and thus
found that it (currently) needs its proprietary firmware uploaded.

Of course, they think it's totally fine if the same crappy hardware has
it's offensive firmware welded into a chip instead, but let's not worry
about that too much, eh?

The obvious unintended consequence of making Debian tiresome for those
users is that they will be driven to use Ubuntu or something even less
free that does support the hardware sitting in front of them.

Having switched away from Debian, those people will probably never worry
about the non-freeness of their hardware again.

If they continue with Debian, they continue to have the chance to notice
the "-nonfree" bit of the package name, and notice that there's other
stuff that's cluttering up their system, and think about disabling it to
see what breaks, and then maybe include that new knowledge in their next
purchasing decision.

So, feel free to do whatever you are moved to do, but when you start
spouting your overly-definite statements about how good or bad you think
Debian is when judged on this basis, you're making the perfect the enemy
of the good, and you're alienating your friends and allies while you're
about it.

That press release is from 2014 BTW, so it's not exactly news that this
issue is really not much of an issue. The way you talk about it gives
the impression that Debian encourages people to use non-free software,
whereas Debian/Debian Developers were for instance instrumental in
moving binary blobs out of the kernel, something that is a pre-requisite
to being able to have a Free Software Linux system at all.

Cheers, Phil.

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|-| http://www.hands.com/ http://ftp.uk.debian.org/
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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-29 10:55:01 UTC

hiya phil,

ok apologies for being slightly ahead and quite short, as you know i'm
on limited time, so made a beeline for the conclusion. lots of steps
that i left out, so this is, by necessity, very long, as it goes
logically through step-by-step each part of the chain of reasoning.
and, at each phase of that reasoning, i trust that you can see clearly
that at NO TIME is "deliberately causing harm or projecting malice
towards ANY party" something that i have time for.

as you know, i am quite goal-orientated. i define goals, and i go for
them, directly. to define one of those goals to include a sub-goal of
"deliberately cause physical, mental or emotional harm to a specific
person or group" as part of that goal would be... a definite "wtf"
moment, shall we say. it would be... illogical, captain. not least,
it would be a total waste of my time to include such a sub-goal, and,
even MORE importantly, such a sub-goal would actually risk destroying
any possibility of completing the main goal.

when you think of it in these terms, saying to me that i've either
explicitly, implicitly or otherwise "said that A Person Is Bad" and
thus causing them distress - such a thing cannot possibly be the case.
now, it's almost certainly the case that i don't use the right words,
or that i simply missed out "the usual words" which someone else might
know and use during a normal conversation: i'm simply too focussed on
what i'm doing to include them.

so i'm going to great lengths, below, to make an effort to include
words like "respect" - a *lot*. it took a long time to do that, and
it was a major distraction, taking up almost 90 minutes to construct
an appropriate response.

if we can work out a way where i don't have to spend such an enormous
amount of time doing that again, in the future, i would be interested
to hear some proposals.

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by Philip Hands

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
all of this i should actually be able to code up myself, by redoing
that initial package and making sure that there's a separate
(overriding) repository with pinning on that replacement
debian-archive-keyring package. means recompiling debian-installer
but that's cool.

You wouldn't need to recompile anything, I suspect -- you _might_ need to
replace the relevant udeb, or you can probably do some sort of (possibly
somewhat disgusting) kludge via preseeding.

cooool :)

Post by Philip Hands
Most probably, if you have a sensible patch, it could be made into
preseedable debconf variable ("fsf-endorsable-mode"?).
Of course, the fact that is an option that could be turned off means
that it's not going to satisfy the people that want Debian to make it so
that some of our users will be unable to use their (crappy and annoying)
hardware. So, it's probably not worth bothering with.

second sentence: given that all the other forks of various distros
are extremely lacklustre, seriously out-of-date with regard to
security updates and actual maintenance, my feeling is that it's
definitely worth tackling this. if you can get an installation of
plain debian packages that's FSF-Endorseable, *great*. less effort,
more modern, up-to-date and more secure.

first sentence: i don't quite follow, but let me make a guess, tell
me if i'm near the mark. based on the assessment here
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
the implications are that the only hardware that a seller can get on
which you can apply for a RYF Certificate is.... really old and only
getting older. thus it's really annoying. so, this bit i absolutely
agree with, but - not that this is what you're saying in any way - i
don't see a connection to an assessement as to why anyone should not
*try* (to either provide better hardware, or to work out a way to
leverage vanilla debian for RYF Certification).

i'm still having difficulty parsing the first bit of the sentence:
i've got a venn diagram in my head with about three or possibly four
different points that you're making in the sentence, and the
conditionals and negations are more than i can manage - sorry!

let me move on, then - i believe the main thing you're saying which
is important is below, about the debian social contract.

Post by Philip Hands
Debian will not make the experience worse for those users, to no real
benefit to other users, because we have a Social Contract that ensures
that we will not get in the way of people that want to use our software
for things that we almost certainly disagree with.

great! sounds fantastic and it's why i love debian, that the social
contract is there and is basically inviolate.

Post by Philip Hands
Apparently some people think it's important to make Debian a tiresome
experience for those that were foolish enough to no know the exact
chipset that was going to be in whatever hardware they bought, and thus
found that it (currently) needs its proprietary firmware uploaded.

ok. so. here's where it gets interesting, but let's answer the
other paragraph first....

Post by Philip Hands
Of course, they think it's totally fine if the same crappy hardware has
it's offensive firmware welded into a chip instead, but let's not worry
about that too much, eh?

companies are finding out the hard way that that's a bad idea. of
course, they're replacing it with firmware that's RSA-signed and
DRM-locked - treacherous-zone for example.

but leaving all that aside, what would happen if a hardware vendor
*deliberately* picked hardware *in advance* that did *NOT* require
proprietary firmware and did NOT have anything that could fall foul of
the usual justifications for having a nonfree section in debian?

what if the people who bought that hardware were, as a general rule,
*never* going to want to install a piece of nonfree firmware in their
lives, because they had had it "up to here" [insert visual image of
putting hand flat, palm down, way over top of head] not with "The
Usual Way That People View The FSF" but with the plain and simple
irritating crap revolving around upgrades where stuff broke ALL the
F******G TIME because some piece of critical proprietary firmware
suddenly became incompatible or was deleted or corrupted or was
removed as part of the upgrade process... a ton of reasons which we
all know.

those are the people that chris serves with his business. people buy
hardware from thinkpenguin because it just *damn well works*.

so. under this scenario, the likelihood of such people even ever
*needing* a nonfree repository is precisely and exactly zero.

Post by Philip Hands
The obvious unintended consequence of making Debian tiresome for those
users is that they will be driven to use Ubuntu or something even less
free that does support the hardware sitting in front of them.

hooray! :) they can go away and stay on the php forums specially set
up for them, where they'll leave everyone else alone. hooray! :)

Post by Philip Hands
Having switched away from Debian, those people will probably never worry
about the non-freeness of their hardware again.
If they continue with Debian, they continue to have the chance to notice
the "-nonfree" bit of the package name, and notice that there's other
stuff that's cluttering up their system, and think about disabling it to
see what breaks, and then maybe include that new knowledge in their next
purchasing decision.
So, feel free to do whatever you are moved to do, but when you start
spouting your overly-definite statements about how good or bad you think
Debian is when judged on this basis, you're making the perfect the enemy
of the good, and you're alienating your friends and allies while you're
about it.

i appreciate that you're likely talking to a wider audience here than
this one, and thank you for explaining. i assume you're referring to
other people who *might* make the mistake of explicitly saying that
"debian is bad because it includes non-free". certainly nobody here
has made such a hypothetical statement, implicitly or explicitly.

if this discussion has given the *impression* of saying "debian is
The Enemy Because It Includes Non-Free" then you are absolutely wrong.
the whole idea of the EOMA projects is to bring to market a subset of
available modern and continuously up-to-date hardware that simply
doesn't *need* the nonfree repository of debian. nobody is saying
"people are bad because of an inviolate Social Charter".

Post by Philip Hands
That press release is from 2014 BTW, so it's not exactly news that this
issue is really not much of an issue. The way you talk about it gives
the impression that Debian encourages people to use non-free software,

nobody's said anything remotely like that in these discussions.

there's a very specific subset of the venn diagram here, which is
being discussed. the options are:

* hardware which requires non-free firmware vs hardware which doesn't (ever)
* debian which includes the non-free archive vs when debian doesn't
have the non-free archive

so to be absolutely clear: the ENTIRE segment of non-free hardware is
eliminated from these discussions. that has the implication of making
the non-free debian archive *REDUNDANT* but ****NOT DISRESPECTED IN
ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, BY IMPLICATION, EXPLICIT STATEMENT OR
ASSUMPTION****.

we RESPECT the debian community for providing the non-free
repository. we just don't need it, because it's irrelevant to the
target hardware and to the target market... but to repeat: just
because it's not needed, does NOT in ANY WAY imply any disrespect or
any kind of "BadNess".

at this point i'm probably overstating the point, made in several
different ways, but that's probably a good thing.

so, is it absolutely clear now that there is nobody who is
disrespecting debian for honouring the debian social contract?

Post by Philip Hands
whereas Debian/Debian Developers were for instance instrumental in
moving binary blobs out of the kernel, something that is a pre-requisite
to being able to have a Free Software Linux system at all.

very cool.

ok.

so.

let's assume that it's been accepted that nobody is disrespecting
anybody else for what they are doing. let's please also assume that
NO STATEMENT EVER MADE is disrespecting anybody for anything - without
making it necessary to clutter up the entire discussion with caveats
and additional sentences re-stating that continuously. which i might
end up doing anyway. it's tiresome to do that, so let's agree in
advance that it hasn't happened, isn't happening, and isn't going to
happen.

moving on.

the hardware situation is: there's no proprietary firmware required. period.

the software situation is: in debian, a nonfree repository is easy to
add, and is possible - and convenient - to add by default during the
installation as well as during normal operation [see preamble sentence
above about not reading into this as being "disrespectful" in any way:
it's just stating the facts].

the FSF situation is: they state that having non-free software on
your system is detrimentally risky (because of the unknowns),
therefore rather than have the users do a half-way-house risk
assessment (which most people are not equipped mentally to do), they
go the "whole hog".

an RYF Certification is therefore only possible if:

(a) the software source code is entirely libre, right down to
power-up (boot time) of the hardware.

(b) the installation of proprietary software, whilst *NOT*
prohibited, must at the very least not be made "convenient".

assessment of (b) is made on a case-by-case basis, but let's be
absolutely clear, here:

(1) buying an RYF-Certified product then ripping out the OS and
putting proprietary software on it is a right of the user that the FSF
fully respects.

(2) buying an RYF-Certified product then installing proprietary
software on a libre, RYF-Certified OS is a right of the user that the
FSF fully respects.

(3) buying an RYF-Certified product, then plugging in peripherals or
other hardware upgrades which REQUIRE non-free firmware is, again, a
right of the user that the FSF fully respects.

in all cases, however, none of those things are the FSF's problem, nor
are they the RYF-Certified product vendor's problem. note, again,
however, that the word "respect" has been used above, just as it has
been used in relation to the debian developers, the charter, and
everything associated with debian.

so - with that in mind, and having respect for ALL parties involved,
now we come to re-stating the possible scenario where the
*possibility* exists for Debian to be on an RYF-Certified product (one
which, as-supplied, is *defined* as having no hardware which requires
proprietary firmware or software to operate).

.... this is, btw, all just a logical chain - a subset of the venn
diagram of possibilities. no "disrespecting" ever even enters the
discussion. "disrespect" or "emotional harm" to ANY party is NOT part
of the venn diagram. it is NOT ONE OF THE GOALS. why on god's green
earth anyone would wish to include "emotional harm" as an additional
sub-goal in a project which furthers libre software, i really don't
know - but i'm certainly not going to have people using this list to
inflict harm on others.

so, taking all the requirements into account, whilst respecting all
parties at the same time, the simple logical intersection and result
is, quite reasonably and rationally:

(1) to modify the debian installer (perhaps by doing preseeding) so
that the question "do you wish to install the nonfree archive" is
simply not asked [does this disrespect anyone in debian for adding
this as a possibility? no it does not]. this is to satisfy criteria
(b) above, whilst also at the same time RESPECTING the Debian Charter.
see below as to why.

(2) to move the nonfree archive GPG key into a separate package, which
is then not installed. this again satisfies FSF criteria (b), above.

this basically satisfies and respects the both the Debian Charter and
the FSF's requirements, without implying any disrespect for either.
what is STILL POSSIBLE for an end-user to do is as follows:

(3) at any time, an end-user MAY still install that [hypothetical]
keyring for the nonfree archive. it will be slightly inconvenient.
lots of steps will be needed, such as maybe even downloading a dpkg
and running as root, and following written instructions.

(4) once that package is installed, they will then need to edit
/etc/apt/sources.list - by hand. this, again, will be slightly
inconvenient - and to add "nonfree" to the sources.list debian archive
line.

this "inconvenience" is an extra hoop which i believe would help
satisfy the FSF's criteria in a respectful way whilst, critically, NOT
actually preventing the end-user from doing it in the first place.
and that, i believe, would mean that it also satisfies and respects
the *Debian* Social Charter, because it's not actually stopped
end-users from doing something that they want to do.

now, here's where we "split", should the hypothetical scenario become
a reality.

* scenario (1) - this is all done independently of and without
involving debian developers in any way. the debian-archive-keyring
package is *replaced* with an over-ride package which simply removes
the nonfree GPG key. this is the initial approach that i was
considering taking, phil. discussions with debian developers aren't
even on the table in this scenario! that's not being disrespectful,
it's just... not needed in order to achieve the goal.

* scenario (2) - debian developers are brought into the loop. here's
where it would get interesting, because a decision would need to be
made about where the {hypothetical-nonfree-keyring} package would
actually be kept (i.e. in which achive). i *hope* that, on assessing
this, the debian developers would appreciate that the sensible place
to put it would be in the nonfree repository itself, *not* in main,
and that a udeb would be created which debian-installer would download
explicitly if and only if the question "do you want nonfree" was ever
answered "yes" during an install.

now, in scenario (2), i trust you can see clearly why the
{hypothetical-nonfree-keyring} would need to go into the nonfree
archive itself (because that would satisfy the FSF's "make it
inconvenient but not impossible to install non-free software"
requirements), and why the udeb would be needed (because that would
satisfy Debian's Charter to "make it convenient and don't stand in the
way of anyone doing anything with their hardware and software"
requirements). once the udeb is installed, you'd have the
{hypothetical} non-free GPG public key on your system [forever, unless
removed], and thus it would be convenient to install nonfree packages.

*but*, what's nice is, both camps are happy and totally separate....
out of the exact same mirrors. it's just organised slightly
differently. everyone - all parties - can do what they want.

sharing an insight with you, when this is laid out like this, i see
no reason why this should not be viewed as a "next logical step" by
the debian developers, moving on from their excellent and tireless
work to move nonfree blobs out of the linux kernel.

also, it's inclusive and respectful of those people who would like to
follow the FSF's advice. or, even if they don't, who just don't want
any hassle, just like chris's customers, and they'd like to go
one-stop shopping with someone they trust.

thoughts and insights appreciated.

l.

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Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo

2016-04-29 12:25:10 UTC

Hi,

(probably a mistake to add to this thread, but... hey, it's Friday).

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the hardware situation is: there's no proprietary firmware required. period.
the software situation is: in debian, a nonfree repository is easy to
add, and is possible - and convenient - to add by default during the
installation as well as during normal operation [see preamble sentence
it's just stating the facts].

You are probably right that the FSF will not certify products with
Debian enabled, but your examples are incorrect, it's not easier to
install non-free software in Debian than in FSF-blessed distros. (But
again, you are right that FSF might use the same examples as an excuse).

Since the alternatives that FSF recommend and bless are something like
Trisquel or gNewSense, which are based on Debian (or Ubuntu?), it's
similarly trivial for any user to enable non-free repositories or
install non-free software directly in their hypothetical RYF-cerfitied
computer with some Debian/Ubuntu-based and FSF-blessed distro -- using
non-free or Ubuntu repositories directly in Trisquel/gNewSense, for
example, or grabbing the packages from them and installing by hand, or
even compiling from upstream's repos (I have many non-specially-savvy
friends who do this).

If Trisquel/gNewSense are based on Ubuntu rather than Debian, and users
go to Ubuntu's forums to get help (if their distro it's just Ubuntu with
the non-free bits removed, it would be the natural place to go), and
decide to enable the Ubuntu repos or others (SteamOS, ...) rather than
Debian, they possibly have even more chances to use more non-free
software than if they restricted themselves to Debian's non-free repos
(which after all don't have lots of "non-free software" as most people
understand it, e.g. proprietary games).

It's also similarly trivial for them to got to some communication
application website (let's call it Spyke), see that there's a version of
Spyke for Debian/Trisquel/whatever, download the .deb and install with
dpkg, which all of these distros provide.

...now, for all of these cases I assume that people enabling those
repositories are not mislead/tricked into installing non-free software,
and that they are not idiots, which sometimes seems to me that it's the
condescending view of FSF to treat Debian in that way while blessing
Trisquel/gNewSense.

In your example of "synaptic", if they have to enable non-free repos
explicitly, they are not doing it unknowingly. The fact that somebody
may install synaptic (as in your example) already indicates that they
know what they are doing and what they want to achieve.

Like Phil, I believe that the problem that users are trying to solve by
installing those pieces of non-free software is that they need the
firmware to enable the hardware that they have (possibly recycled from
their family, not an option to buy new one), or need to use Spyke
temporarily for a job interview / university application / talk to their
uncle in Taiwan before arranging a visit (the alternative that the
company or university are going to offer is not to use a free
communication tool, but to ignore the applicant), or use some non-free
software for their tax-returns (or otherwise possibly face huge fines or
jail).

So in summary, if the users are conscious about the non-freeness, they
will do the possible/reasonable to avoid it whether they use Debian or
FSF-blessed ones; and if they don't care, they can circumvent it as
easily in FSF-blessed distros and in Debian.

But again, yes, probably you will not pass RFY filter if you use Debian
with that name.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(a) the software source code is entirely libre, right down to
power-up (boot time) of the hardware.

Debian is, by default.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(b) the installation of proprietary software, whilst *NOT*
prohibited, must at the very least not be made "convenient".

'wget spyke*.deb && dpkg -i spyke*.deb' convenient enough in all the
alternatives to Debian :-)

(even easier to install than your example with synaptic)

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(2) to move the nonfree archive GPG key into a separate package, which
is then not installed. this again satisfies FSF criteria (b), above.

My example above (dpkg) doesn't check gpg signatures, and it's trivial
to ignore them in apt (--allow-unauthenticated) or other installation
tools.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
this basically satisfies and respects the both the Debian Charter and
the FSF's requirements, without implying any disrespect for either.
(3) at any time, an end-user MAY still install that [hypothetical]
keyring for the nonfree archive. it will be slightly inconvenient.
lots of steps will be needed, such as maybe even downloading a dpkg
and running as root, and following written instructions.
(4) once that package is installed, they will then need to edit
/etc/apt/sources.list - by hand. this, again, will be slightly
inconvenient - and to add "nonfree" to the sources.list debian archive
line.
this "inconvenience" is an extra hoop which i believe would help
satisfy the FSF's criteria in a respectful way whilst, critically, NOT
actually preventing the end-user from doing it in the first place.
and that, i believe, would mean that it also satisfies and respects
the *Debian* Social Charter, because it's not actually stopped
end-users from doing something that they want to do.

See above, no necessary to go through these hoops at all.

Your example of synaptic and stuff also needs running as root. dpkg is
present in all-debian based systems, incl. Ubuntu and
Trisquel/gNewSense, no need to install anything other than download a
deb package with the browser and feed it into dpkg (plenty of
instructions and recommendations to do that all over the web).

I'll stop here :)

Cheers.

--
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <***@gmail.com>

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-29 13:21:12 UTC

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 1:25 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Hi,
(probably a mistake to add to this thread, but... hey, it's Friday).

no problem manuel :)

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the hardware situation is: there's no proprietary firmware required.
period.
the software situation is: in debian, a nonfree repository is easy to
add, and is possible - and convenient - to add by default during the
installation as well as during normal operation [see preamble sentence
it's just stating the facts].

please: be respectful. i don't want to hear the word "excuse"
applied to anyone.

right. ok, it's important to qualify what's "easy" - easy for whom?

you and i, yes it's easy. i run fvwm2, and most of the programs i
start up (including firefox) are done by opening an xterm and typing
"firefox".

however it's very very important to note that when considering an RYF
Certification, the FSF will do it from the perspective of an *average
end-user* - not you or i. and that's a completely different analysis
criteria. they will go "is it easy for my *grandma* to install
non-free software with this OS on this hardware?"

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Since the alternatives that FSF recommend and bless are something like
Trisquel or gNewSense, which are based on Debian (or Ubuntu?),

trisquel's based on ubuntu 8.04, and hasn't moved since. gNewSense
is debian, and they appear to have used debian, but went for a much
more comprehensive "rebranding". i'm interested in doing the minimum
required amount of work here.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
it's
similarly trivial for any user to enable non-free repositories or
install non-free software directly in their hypothetical RYF-cerfitied
computer with some Debian/Ubuntu-based and FSF-blessed distro -- using
non-free or Ubuntu repositories directly in Trisquel/gNewSense, for
example, or grabbing the packages from them and installing by hand, or
even compiling from upstream's repos (I have many non-specially-savvy
friends who do this).

cool. that's actually very useful to know... but i woudn't count
even your friends as being average-end-users. think "grandma" or
"busy secretary in an office". the kinds of people where, if
something snowballed to a million or a hundred million end-users, the
actual number of people installing non-free software would still
remain well below the 0.05% mark.

where the FSF *really* has to get paranoid and concerned is if, say,
the number of people using Trisquel or gNewSense and then installing
non-free packages hit, say... 20% of the total number of users. if
*that* happened then they'd start reconsidering.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
If Trisquel/gNewSense are based on Ubuntu rather than Debian, and users
go to Ubuntu's forums to get help (if their distro it's just Ubuntu with
the non-free bits removed, it would be the natural place to go), and
decide to enable the Ubuntu repos or others (SteamOS, ...) rather than
Debian, they possibly have even more chances to use more non-free
software than if they restricted themselves to Debian's non-free repos
(which after all don't have lots of "non-free software" as most people
understand it, e.g. proprietary games).
It's also similarly trivial for them to got to some communication
application website (let's call it Spyke), see that there's a version of
Spyke for Debian/Trisquel/whatever, download the .deb and install with
dpkg, which all of these distros provide.

that's fine, because it's outside of the remit of the company that
got the RYF Certificate. skype is *not* in a GNU repository, or in
the debian repository, or in any repository at all. it's not
GPG-signed by the debian team, it's certainly not GPG-signed by the
FSF, so would definitely be considered to fall into the "feel free to
do what you like but don't call us for tech support" category.

however: about the forums bit - yes, that's a risk that they'd just
have to take, and in some ways it's good that gNewSense uses debian
already, because it's set the precedent.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
...now, for all of these cases I assume that people enabling those
repositories are not mislead/tricked into installing non-free software,
and that they are not idiots, which sometimes seems to me that it's the
condescending view of FSF to treat Debian in that way while blessing
Trisquel/gNewSense.

there's a level of separation between Trisquel/gNewSense and the
original debian and ubuntu, in terms of them being entirely separate
web sites, as well as having people have to jump through "unofficial
hoops", and separate archive mirrors which are again, on a totally
different domain name.

i don't really like to use the words "idiots" - let's call them
"average end-users" instead (examples include "grandma" or "busy
secretary" or "7-year-old" or "49-year-old farm mechanic and cattle
breeder")

average end-users simply cannot cope with the "jumping through hoops"
- they haven't got time. if they really need to, they'll go buy a
windows PC. or a mac. and that's fine. we're not catering to them,
and neither is the FSF.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
In your example of "synaptic", if they have to enable non-free repos
explicitly, they are not doing it unknowingly. The fact that somebody
may install synaptic (as in your example) already indicates that they
know what they are doing and what they want to achieve.

given that you're not making the distinction between "competent
people capable of and having the time to follow clear instructions"
and "average end user", i believe that the point you make here is
referring to the former category only, so would not apply.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Like Phil, I believe that the problem that users are trying to solve by
installing those pieces of non-free software is that they need the
firmware to enable the hardware that they have (possibly recycled from
their family, not an option to buy new one), or need to use Spyke
temporarily for a job interview / university application / talk to their
uncle in Taiwan before arranging a visit (the alternative that the
company or university are going to offer is not to use a free
communication tool, but to ignore the applicant), or use some non-free
software for their tax-returns (or otherwise possibly face huge fines or
jail).

that's fine: we are not catering to, targetting, or in any way
interested in selling to such users. so apart from mentioning such
users as an aside, it is not necessary to include such people in any
plans.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
So in summary, if the users are conscious about the non-freeness, they
will do the possible/reasonable to avoid it whether they use Debian or
FSF-blessed ones; and if they don't care, they can circumvent it as
easily in FSF-blessed distros and in Debian.

again: you haven't specified the ability or the amount of time that
"they" have, in this paragraph. see above.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
But again, yes, probably you will not pass RFY filter if you use Debian
with that name.

again: this is a follow-on conclusion from a set of criteria that
were not clearly expressed.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(a) the software source code is entirely libre, right down to
power-up (boot time) of the hardware.

Debian is, by default.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(b) the installation of proprietary software, whilst *NOT*
prohibited, must at the very least not be made "convenient".

'wget spyke*.deb && dpkg -i spyke*.deb' convenient enough in all the
alternatives to Debian :-)
(even easier to install than your example with synaptic)

again: you're assuming that the person is competent enough to work
that out on their own. you are competent to do that: i am competent
to do that. your _friends_ are competent to do that. however we are
specifically talking about the people who are *ACTIVELY AFRAID* to run
a command prompt, or are otherwise extremely irritated or annoyed to
have to contemplate it, or just plain haven't got a clue what a
"command" is, let alone a "prompt".

do you understand and appreciate the difference, here?

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
(2) to move the nonfree archive GPG key into a separate package, which
is then not installed. this again satisfies FSF criteria (b), above.

My example above (dpkg) doesn't check gpg signatures, and it's trivial
to ignore them in apt (--allow-unauthenticated) or other installation
tools.

again, you are talking about people who are competent with and not
afraid of typing commands in case they do harm to their computer and
lose all their files by doing something that they have *no idea* of
the consequences.

they see the words, but it is completely meaningless to them. the
only reason i can get my non-technical friend to type commands over
the phone (which takes an hour out of my day) is because i've known
him all my life, and he trusts me. without my help he'd be absolutely
stuffed. he's a plumbing and mechanical engineer.

you - and your friends - have the ability to logically deduce meaning
from results. most people in the world have *absolutely no clue*, and
absolutely no faith in computers. viruses have stolen their bank
account contents: why should they *ever* trust computers.... and
you're talking about running a *command*????

no.

think at their level, from the perspective of someone with zero
knowledge. *that's* whom we have to consider. you and i - and your
friends - are extremely lucky, believe me.

See above, no necessary to go through these hoops at all.

if the entire world of computing users were as competent as you, i
and your friends, you would be absolutely right.

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Your example of synaptic and stuff also needs running as root.

for the average person, that's total shit-scared pants-wetting
territory. it's where, on windows, you hear about how viruses get
"Admin". in the minds of the average end-user, it's a massive
barrier, just from all the bad publicity from windows and now macs
which get hit by phishing attacks and so on.

have you ever installed GNU/Linux on a windows user's computer? i
did so for one person. coincidentally, their daughter had visited
during that week. a virus attack destroyed the windows partition
because their daughter had brought in a virus on a memory stick. the
blame for destroying the OS was placed firmly on the installation of
Debian GNU/Linux. this was even after their son patiently explained
to them in non-technical terms that it was flat-out impossible to
occur, which the father completely ignored. so, ironically, rather
than use the Debian GNU/Linux installation to carry on using the
hardware, they went without any computing resources for over a week.

this type of faulty logical reasoning is rampant amongst
non-technical people. they *genuinely* believe that it is their fault
when something goes wrong, so are completely afraid to do anything -
to experiment, to tinker and to step outside of the box.

and who can blame them when they've been conditioned by decades of
abuse from mass-volume monoculture software weaknesses?

so yes. *please* think from the perspective of the target audience -
average end-users - not from your own personal perspective of
technical expertise. i see that mistake being made a lot here on this
list.

l.

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Paul Boddie

2016-04-29 14:03:29 UTC

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Since the alternatives that FSF recommend and bless are something like
Trisquel or gNewSense, which are based on Debian (or Ubuntu?),

I think it's easy to go round in circles here when the FSF's own guidelines
can instruct us and help explain why these separately-branded distributions
exist. I hope the FSF doesn't mind me quoting from their document. ;-)

On branding and naming:

"We will not list a distribution whose name makes confusion with nonfree
distributions likely. For example, if Foobar Light is a free distribution and
Foobar is a nonfree distribution, we will not list Foobar Light."

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#name-
confusion

So, if Debian is "nonfree" (let us not get into why or how they might reach
that conclusion), then you won't get a Debian-branded certified distro.

----

On using non-free software:

"What would be unacceptable is for the documentation to give people
instructions for installing a nonfree program on the system, or mention
conveniences they might gain by doing so."

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-
guidelines.html#documentation

So, again, the problem might be that since Debian documentation, such as the
Debian Wiki which bears an increasing amount of responsibility for documenting
the distribution, mentions how to install non-free software, this might count
against Debian itself being regarded as a certified distro. They do mention
this, though:

"For a borderline case, a clear and serious exhortation not to use the nonfree
program would move it to the acceptable side of the line."

I guess this would require editorial practices not currently undertaken plus
some discipline from people contributing to the documentation.

----

On providing non-free software:

"The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific
recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs."

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#license-
rules

This is the big obstacle. I suppose Trisquel and gNewSense get around this by
hosting their own repositories and not hosting the non-free ones.

----

I can understand why the FSF wants to help users avoid the slippery slope of
doing what random people on the Internet suggest, enabling various
repositories for a quick fix when some proprietary service doesn't work, and
then seeing those people fill their systems with dubious and potentially
stability-damaging software, not to mention that it would be non-free and
could have negative effects on their freedoms and, through network effects, on
others' freedoms.

However, the tone of the guidance, although it isn't for end-users, isn't
exactly positive nor does it give the impression of encouraging choice. Of
course, words are not going to be wasted on saying that it is quite alright to
encourage people to install Free Software from third-party repositories, but
it's easy to come away with the idea that such a policy is restrictive.

What worries me the most is the burden that might be created. Although
licensing requirements have been refined over the years so that it might be
possible to avoid hosting everything yourself (thinking back to the whole
Mepis Linux case where people were being sent to Ubuntu to get the sources),
the provisioning required to host a complete distribution is not something to
be taken lightly, even if the tooling probably isn't that bad for people with
experience of it already.

The result might be that if anyone does try and pitch a certified distro, it
ends up being a small one that doesn't offer the breadth of something like
Debian because of the magnitude of the diversion from whatever goal the people
doing it originally had. In this case, how much effort should be diverted away
from getting the hardware and software done towards rebranding, repacking and
hosting something that is essentially Debian?

I really think that the different parties should just get together and develop
a reasonable understanding around these matters based on the substantial level
of agreement they probably already have.

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-29 15:46:15 UTC

hi paul thanks for chipping in... and also for changing the subject to
something sensible. brief comments below. btw yes i have already
referred people in the FSF (as part of working out how to apply for
RYF Certification) to this discussion, and also remember, archives are
forever and completely public and open to anybody, so please
everybody, be respectful and always assume the best intentions on part
of contributors to the discussion.

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Post by Paul Boddie
"We will not list a distribution whose name makes confusion with nonfree
distributions likely. For example, if Foobar Light is a free distribution and
Foobar is a nonfree distribution, we will not list Foobar Light."
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#name-
confusion
So, if Debian is "nonfree" (let us not get into why or how they might reach
that conclusion), then you won't get a Debian-branded certified distro.

ok so that explains why distros create separate web sites.

Post by Paul Boddie
"The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific
recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs."

so, if someone creates *third party* recipies - not hosted on the
main web site - then that's absolutely fine, which explains why so
many people wonder why it's quotes ok quotes to add foreign
repositories.

Post by Paul Boddie
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#license-
rules
This is the big obstacle. I suppose Trisquel and gNewSense get around this by
hosting their own repositories and not hosting the non-free ones.

pretty much, yeah. which explains why they're old, as it's a hell of
a lot of work. arch-linux is slightly different.

Post by Paul Boddie
What worries me the most is the burden that might be created.

well, the idea that occurred to me was to have a separate (minimalist)
repository of "forked" packages, and to have those as overrides
(pinned priorities) but otherwise include the standard debian line in
/etc/apt/sources.list.

the next phase on from that - if it's not even acceptable to do that
- would be, yes, to mirror only the free packages from debian (across
all architectures. this is a cross-architecture project, after all).

i would not, of course, be mirroring the debian wiki with its
documentation and references to non-free software.

l.

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Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo

2016-04-29 17:59:37 UTC

Hi,

Post by Paul Boddie

Post by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
Since the alternatives that FSF recommend and bless are something like
Trisquel or gNewSense, which are based on Debian (or Ubuntu?),

I know the reasons, but I don't agree with them and think that they are
misguided and actively harmful in this area.

Which is a shame, because in general I align 100% with the principles of
the FSF, as many other people in Debian do.

( Yes, I know that this is futile to resolve here, just wanted to refute
some of Luke's points about being difficult to install non-free
software in FSF-certified distros.

BTW, I forgot to say that apt-1.1 and gdebi both install and resolve
dependencies of local files, so they're even more convenient to use
than dpkg for this purpose. Probably package-kit-based front-ends and
other higher level tools used from desktops --which I am pretty sure
that are also present in Trisquel and gNewSense-- make the process
easy as well ).

This is FSF's objection about Debian:

============================================
http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

(3 paragraphs)

#1: "Debian's Social Contract states the goal of making Debian
entirely free software, and Debian conscientiously keeps nonfree
software out of the official Debian system. However, Debian also
provides a repository of nonfree software. According to the project,
this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository
is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can
readily find these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online
package database and its wiki."
============================================

(Funnily enough, many "non-free packages" in non-free is documentation
for GNU software. I am very happy that we host those in Debian, even if
they are "non-free", and I believe that it's a good service for Debian
users.)

Repository names, URLs and the section to which the packages belong
(shown in many tools) are clearly labeled as "non-free". Any person who
wants to be careful installing such packages has enough hints to
indicate that s/he's installing something "non-free" because of some
specific aspect, and study it carefully (which still, its not being a
full "app store" full of proprietary apps, in any case).

Considering that these are not enough warnings is IMO condescending
towards those users, be them "grandma" (condescending and disrespectful
term for old women, BTW), 7 year-olds, or tech users. And it's not true
that it's more challenging for any user, tech-savvy or not, to
enable/install non-free software in Trisquel or gNewSense *compared to*
Debian.

Besides, there are many opportunities outside the package system to
install non-free software, e.g. plug-ins for many applications. I don't
think that in Trisquel/gNewSense most of those cases are either
prevented by the applications or that the users get a big warning if
they try to install plugins, or that they don't work if they follow the
documentation provided with the package and shipped in the distro, or
recommended in their own forums (4th post):

https://trisquel.info/en/forum/say-goodbye-npapi

Whether they are hosted or not by the distribution is not very important
in the end, end-users don't even know where they come from (esp. if URL
is not visible). Maybe they assume that plugins for all the tools come
from the distro, when in fact they don't, which is *worse* than when
they decide to install a package on the system coming from controlled
repositories such as Debian's (even if it's the "non-free" one).

To make matters worse, in 2016 it is perfectly possible to use the
browser or a messaging program to use with non-free services, many
selling your data; play non-free-games; emulate DOS or MAME machines
within the browser; or or visit websites with non-free JS; or many other
problems that FSF is rightly concerned about. The distro is not the
biggest channel through which these "dangers" come, but the network,
which is the same for all distros.

So I think the position of the FSF is hypocritical in this respect, but
specially shortsighted / outdated / ineffective, and focusing on trivia
while ignoring big and relevant problems.

============================================
#2: "There is also a “contrib” repository; its packages are free, but
some of them exist to load separately distributed proprietary
programs. This too is not thoroughly separated from the main Debian
distribution."
============================================

RMS famously believes that it's not crucial if games have non-free data,
and one of the links that you post below says:

"It does not include artistic works that have an aesthetic (rather
than functional) purpose, or statements of opinion or judgment".

Well, this is one of the cases for "contrib": if the game engine is free
but requires non-free data, goes to "contrib"; if it can be used with
fully-free data goes to the "main" archive.

============================================
#3: "Previous releases of Debian included nonfree blobs with Linux,
the kernel. With the release of Debian 6.0 (“squeeze”) in February
2011, these blobs have been moved out of the main distribution to
separate packages in the nonfree repository. However, the problem
partly remains: the installer in some cases recommends these nonfree
firmware files for the peripherals on the machine."
============================================

Since the users are warned about the non-freeness of the firmware, they
can make their own choice. In some cases the firmware is necessary for
their machines to work correctly (incl. updates to the microcode of the
processor, unfortunately), in other cases they can opt-out of using the
firmware and using a wifi-dongle instead which operates without or with
free firmware, for example.

In the majority of cases, users (tech-savvy or not) are better off if
the updates to such carefully controlled and very limited set of
packages come through Debian than if they have to chase them up around
the net from multiple vendors and websites.

But in any case, the warnings are there, so the FSF position on this is
unnecessarily condescending.

And given that GNU started off and still actively supports their
packages working on non-free systems, I cannot see what's the
fundamental difference by which is bad for Debian to enable the use of
free software in non-free hardware but good for GNU to support Solaris
or Windows, for example, and create proprietary executables and enable
other non-free software, and continue/extend its use by virtue of the
network effects. The reason for LGPL it's "strategic", in the case of
Debian doing the same is bad. Hum, double standards.

Post by Paul Boddie
"What would be unacceptable is for the documentation to give people
instructions for installing a nonfree program on the system, or mention
conveniences they might gain by doing so."
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-
guidelines.html#documentation
So, again, the problem might be that since Debian documentation, such as the
Debian Wiki which bears an increasing amount of responsibility for documenting
the distribution, mentions how to install non-free software, this might count
against Debian itself being regarded as a certified distro. They do mention
"For a borderline case, a clear and serious exhortation not to use the nonfree
program would move it to the acceptable side of the line."
I guess this would require editorial practices not currently undertaken plus
some discipline from people contributing to the documentation.

I think that it would be much more easy/productive to go and edit the
Debian wiki in those cases than create full distributions, and that the
Debian people would even be grateful.

Otherwise, I don't follow every corner of the wiki, but there are many
cases already with the big warnings:

https://wiki.debian.org/skype

Compare with (not the only one):

https://www.fsf.org/working-together/gang

"Software for viewing YouTube videos" (non-free service), "Java" (with
some bits of the stack problematic for many years, I don't know lately),
or Mozilla which allows non-free add-ons and codecs, and the page
(sanctioned by FSF staff, not even volunteers) without any warning at
all that these can harm your freedom.

Post by Paul Boddie
"The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific
recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs."
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#license-
rules
This is the big obstacle. I suppose Trisquel and gNewSense get around this by
hosting their own repositories and not hosting the non-free ones.

Which is probably ineffective with the case of program's plugins, for
example; and it glosses over the fact that users sometimes will be
forced to find their way to install what they need with very suboptimal
consequences because the whole computer will not work otherwise.

BTW, the FSF recommend F-Droid (of which I am very happy user and
donator) even if they contain many apps that can solely be used with
non-free services (e.g. Telegram) and are not separated in different
repos or are not difficult to enable:

http://www.fsf.org/working-together/next-steps/free-software-for-android

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/android-market-has-drm-too

or an interview, without asking/mentioning anything about non-free
services:

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/interview-with-ciaran-gultnieks-of-f-droid

So I don't understand why it's more problematic to enable non-free for
firmware that your processor needs to operate, or non-free data for a
game, than to install a program that can only be used to access non-free
services or share your data.

Post by Paul Boddie
I can understand why the FSF wants to help users avoid the slippery slope of
doing what random people on the Internet suggest, enabling various
repositories for a quick fix when some proprietary service doesn't work, and
then seeing those people fill their systems with dubious and potentially
stability-damaging software, not to mention that it would be non-free and
could have negative effects on their freedoms and, through network effects, on
others' freedoms.

I agree, and that's exactly one of the things that Debian non-free repos
achieve: to have a central place where key pieces that many people will
need with today's state of hardware and things, and which is in general
much safer than any other 3rd party repos.

If the users installing Trisquel or gNewSense need those non-free bits
for any reason, they would be better off from any point of view if they
enable the non-free repos provided by Debian (or if they had installed
Debian in the first place). The alternative, which is to go to
Intel's/nvidia/broadcom/whatever website, is much worse in most cases.

Post by Paul Boddie
The result might be that if anyone does try and pitch a certified distro, it
ends up being a small one that doesn't offer the breadth of something like
Debian because of the magnitude of the diversion from whatever goal the people
doing it originally had. In this case, how much effort should be diverted away
from getting the hardware and software done towards rebranding, repacking and
hosting something that is essentially Debian?

My reply to this question is clear: acknowledging that the information
and separation in Debian is enough, move on, and try to spend the
energies in solving the real problems, e.g. supporting free hardware
initiatives :)

Since things like de-blobbing the kernel (as Phil pointed out) come from
Debian people, the existence of Debian is a great positive for
free-software-loving users, and the only reason why derivatives as those
blessed by FSF can even exist.

So I always find this hostility towards Debian very unnecessary and
annoying (as it can be gauged by the length of my reply :P).

Post by Paul Boddie
I really think that the different parties should just get together and develop
a reasonable understanding around these matters based on the substantial level
of agreement they probably already have.

There are people trying actively to resolve this, and John Sullivan
(exec director) is a Debian Developer and participated in the last 2
DebConfs with talks related with this.

But I feel that the historical decisions that made them not recommend
Debian are holding them in the same position, while they obviate the
same problems when applied to new things like F-Droid and the same
practical problems with Trisquel and gNewSense, or their own software
packages.

Cheers.

Elena ``of Valhalla''

2016-04-29 14:53:53 UTC

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
that's fine, because it's outside of the remit of the company that
got the RYF Certificate. skype is *not* in a GNU repository, or in
the debian repository, or in any repository at all. it's not

actually, skype is in one ubuntu repository, which if I'm not mistaken
at least trisquel users could add

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype

3rd party repositories for other proprietary software are often
available and adding them usually requires just about the same level of
tech-expertise as adding non-free to debian (or to gNewSense).

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
i don't really like to use the words "idiots" - let's call them
"average end-users" instead (examples include "grandma" or "busy
secretary" or "7-year-old" or "49-year-old farm mechanic and cattle
breeder")

actually, 'grandma' tends to be quite discriminatory and offensive,
considering that a woman can easily be of grandma age and still be an IT
professional (probably near retirement, but not necessarily).

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
average end-users simply cannot cope with the "jumping through hoops"
- they haven't got time. if they really need to, they'll go buy a
windows PC. or a mac. and that's fine. we're not catering to them,
and neither is the FSF.

so it is fine for anybody who is not a tech expert to be forced to buy a
mainstream spying device, while software freedom is just for people who
can afford spending their time jumping through hoops?

--
Elena ``of Valhalla''

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

2016-04-29 15:24:35 UTC

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On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Elena ``of Valhalla''

actually, skype is in one ubuntu repository, which if I'm not mistaken
at least trisquel users could add
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype

sounds about right.

Post by Elena ``of Valhalla''
3rd party repositories for other proprietary software are often
available and adding them usually requires just about the same level of
tech-expertise as adding non-free to debian (or to gNewSense).

exactly. and i'm counting on exactly that. in order to receive its
Certification, gNewSense will have had to have done something pretty
much exactly as [either of] Scenario (1) or (2) - it's just that they
will have also gone a bit further and added some "branding" packages
(logos, etc.)

then increase the age in your mind sufficiently so that the age
avoids any such discrimination and offense, and/or qualify the word in
such a way so that it excludes technically-competent people. i trust
that you understand that. being now 46 i forget sometimes that my
grandma was about 70 when i was 10. if she was still alive there's no
way she would cope with a libre operating system, let alone an
FSF-Endorseable one.

if you know of an appropriate word which describes people who are of
the 1930s to 1950s generation, for whom technology is sheer
bewilderment instead of a joy, please do let me know what that word
is. otherwise, please assume that that is what is meant, and, without
prejudice or offense, adjust your mindset and focus to accommodate
that, without creating a distraction from the goal [see below].

so it is fine for anybody who is not a tech expert to be forced to buy a
mainstream spying device, while software freedom is just for people who
can afford spending their time jumping through hoops?

i'm having difficulty understanding the question - i can't parse it
properly - as it covers too many topics at once in a single sentence,
and, more than that, i don't follow its purpose or the motivation for
asking it.

the goal is to see brought into existence a modern, secure,
minimum-maintenance FSF-Endorseable OS that covers a wide range of
architectures, so that EOMA68 products can be sold and be upgraded
over the next 10-15 years seamlessly with a minimum amount of fuss by
either the technical individuals maintaining EOMA68 products, or the
end-users themselves, regardless of the underlying hardware
architecture that is available now or in the future.

would answering your question help or hinder that goal? would it be
time well spent to pursue answering it?

if you can clarify your question, and/or explain to me how an answer
to your question would specifically - and exclusively - assist and
further that specific goal (and not introduce any scope-creep in that
goal), i'll be happy to answer it. would that be ok with you? if i
don't hear from you i'll assume "no" and i trust that's also okay.

we have limited resources and time, and we have to start somewhere.
the focus therefore has to be quite specific, and to begin at a
leverage-point that can be expanded later on to cover much more than
is currently being tackled.

i trust that you understand that, and are fine with having to keep to
a very narrow initial and achievable focus at this exact moment in
time.

l.

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Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo

2016-04-29 18:59:46 UTC