Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and, non-free software (Scott Williams)
Peter Zoeller
peter_zoeller at rogers.com
Wed Jan 22 01:47:25 UTC 2014
In my humble opinion one does not need to change ones fundamental
philosophies with respect to ones approach to the product one develops.
But lets face facts when it comes to the real world of software,
hardware and communication to be valuable to any business or individual
a product needs to be flexible and adjustable. One size does not fit
all that is why we use Linux and not Windows.
I support a business and do need to have access to an installer that
makes it easy to install non-free software. To build and provide an
installer that can handle both worlds, Foss and proprietary would make
it easy for people to gravitate to the Linux world be it Fedora, Debian,
Ubuntu, Mint et al. Lets face facts. As good and as divers as our open
source world is there are times when that world doesn't provide what is
needed to run a business, or use a piece of hardware that is required.
Not all software or hardware suppliers provide linux versions. For
example most small businesses run QuickBooks. As admiral as GnuCash is,
and I use it for myself, it can't and doesn't do what QuickBooks does,
or Accpac or any of the other commercial accounting software packages.
That leaves one to purchase and install a commercially developed one
from a proprietary vendor that built one for Linux. Having an installer
that can handle subsequent software upgrades for such an installed
package would be a boon.
Just because we have a piece of software ie and installer that can deal
with both worlds does not mean that we have diverged from our Foss
philosophy. You can't force people by policy to use what you want them
to use. That is a Microsoft policy and that is why I left MS and run
Linux. I like the freedom to choose what I want for my OS and not be
railroaded into using some else's idea of what I should use. Linux
after all is not just about open source, it is about freedom of choice.
If I want to use Chrome instead of Firefox I can. If I want to use
LibreOffice instead of KOffice I can. If I need the Adobe Acrobat
reader to access a page on the web I can do so since the page won't
display otherwise and I do need access to that page since it is one of
my suppliers. No one in their right mind would tell a supplier that
they need to change their website to make it Foss compliant. Linux has
always been know to work well with others although others don't play
well with it.
Personally I have moved away from Fedora and use Debian because Fedora
has left the Linux standards by combining the bin and usr/bin
directories, sbin with usr/sbin. That has broken a number of basic
command line tools. Yes it makes Fedora more Unix like but if I wanted
Unix I would install FreeBSD. So if you wonder why people are moving
away you should ask them.
Peter :-)
On 01/21/2014 07:33 PM, advisory-board-request at lists.fedoraproject.org
wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
> non-free software (Scott Williams)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:33:17 -0800
> From: Scott Williams <vwbusguy at fedoraproject.org>
> To: advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
> non-free software
> Message-ID:
> <CA+k6Ba=rS8y81fnEnaowCkff1kZtoGiaPs+WN2Hw1KmpY5-PVg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> For my $.02, embracing FOSS has always been a distinctive of Fedora. There
> are plenty of other distributions that have made compromises, but there is
> a strong core of our community that has stayed active here because of our
> commitment to FOSS. In my opinion, using non-FOSS is easy enough as is for
> people that decide to go that route. I'm not in favor of changing our
> stance on this.
>
> Scott (vwbusguy)
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 2:12 PM, <
> advisory-board-request at lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
>> Send advisory-board mailing list submissions to
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>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of advisory-board digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Jóhann B. Guðmundsson)
>> 2. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Eric H. Christensen)
>> 3. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (inode0)
>> 4. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Matthew Garrett)
>> 5. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Adam Williamson)
>> 6. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Eric H. Christensen)
>> 7. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Adam Williamson)
>> 8. Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software (Jóhann B. Guðmundsson)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 21:14:47 +0000
>> From: "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" <johannbg at gmail.com>
>> To: advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <52DEE347.8050608 at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>>
>> On 01/21/2014 08:53 PM, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>> In the end the main question for me is if we are prepared to trust the
>> working groups to make the products they have been tasked with making,
>>> or are we going to second guess them every step of the way?
>> I think you should be more concerned if the community actually supports
>> the next and wg effort then fesco breathing down yours and other wg's
>> neck especially after such an attack on our foundation.
>>
>> JBG
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:23:55 -0500
>> From: "Eric H. Christensen" <sparks at fedoraproject.org>
>> To: Fedora community advisory board
>> <advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <20140121212355.GF30387 at localhost.localdomain>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-action=pgp-signed
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA512
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 03:53:41PM -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>> In the end the main question for me is if we are prepared to trust the
>> working groups to make the products they have been tasked with making,
>>> or are we going to second guess them every step of the way?
>> Really? What you are asking is hardly "every step of the way". What
>> you're asking for is a rewrite of the foundation for what the Project was
>> founded. You worry about losing users because we don't make it easy to use
>> non-FOSS software. I worry about losing contributors when you start
>> changing the beliefs of the Project. In my opinion, you haven't provided a
>> very good arguement as to why we should fundamentally change what we've
>> stood for for the past ten years.
>>
>> - -- Eric
>>
>> - --------------------------------------------------
>> Eric "Sparks" Christensen
>> Fedora Project
>>
>> sparks at fedoraproject.org - sparks at redhat.com
>> 097C 82C3 52DF C64A 50C2 E3A3 8076 ABDE 024B B3D1
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>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:34:52 -0600
>> From: inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com>
>> To: Fedora community advisory board
>> <advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID:
>> <CAAHfup=
>> 4fbYHgQKZ70xrfosQPNbqXzzBhOwF1b7E-eq_PsHYuQ at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 12:24 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org>
>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 01:20:20PM -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ok, just to be sure I understood you, you want the metadata stored on
>>>> a server and have it downloaded from there by the Software
>>>> installation application as opposed to shipped on the ISO image? I
>>>> don't have a problem with that.
>>> No, I mean I want the metadata to be provided by the vendor and for the
>>> user to obtain that metadata from the vendor. I don't want Fedora to
>>> have anything to do with that metadata.
>> Do you object to the app going out and obtaining the metadata from the
>> vendor on behalf of the user after such time as the user opts-in in
>> some fashion?
>>
>> /me isn't endorsing that solution, just wondering how people feel about it.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 21:38:07 +0000
>> From: Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org>
>> To: advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <20140121213807.GA10809 at srcf.ucam.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 03:34:52PM -0600, inode0 wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 12:24 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org>
>> wrote:
>>>> No, I mean I want the metadata to be provided by the vendor and for the
>>>> user to obtain that metadata from the vendor. I don't want Fedora to
>>>> have anything to do with that metadata.
>>> Do you object to the app going out and obtaining the metadata from the
>>> vendor on behalf of the user after such time as the user opts-in in
>>> some fashion?
>> Yes.
>>
>> --
>> Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 5
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:53:29 -0800
>> From: Adam Williamson <awilliam at redhat.com>
>> To: Fedora community advisory board
>> <advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <1390341209.26723.231.camel at adam.happyassassin.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>>
>> On Tue, 2014-01-21 at 13:37 -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>
>>> Our influence with the rest of the world and promoting freedom rests on
>> us having users and obviously the
>>> way we have been building Fedora and the policies around Fedora used so
>> far is not giving us that.
>>
>> This is the bit of the movie where the background music turns ominous
>> and the hero is offered a choice: stick to his principles and tough it
>> out, or accept the apparently small compromise in one little corner of
>> his value set which will allow him to spread the rest of that value set
>> to the world. Right?
>>
>> I think we've all seen how those movies end.
>>
>> I would like it on the record that I consider Fedora's current values -
>> specifically, our *commitment to* (not just *preference for*) libre
>> software - an immense social and technical good, I am strongly committed
>> to those values, I am strongly opposed to this change (defined as 'any
>> change which leads to the seamless availability of non-libre software in
>> Fedora products'), and I might have to re-consider my work on Fedora if
>> this change were to be approved.
>> --
>> Adam Williamson
>> Fedora QA Community Monkey
>> IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
>> http://www.happyassassin.net
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 6
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:57:37 -0500
>> From: "Eric H. Christensen" <sparks at fedoraproject.org>
>> To: Fedora community advisory board
>> <advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <20140121215737.GH30387 at localhost.localdomain>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-action=pgp-signed
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA512
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 01:53:29PM -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
>>> I would like it on the record that I consider Fedora's current values -
>>> specifically, our *commitment to* (not just *preference for*) libre
>>> software - an immense social and technical good, I am strongly committed
>>> to those values, I am strongly opposed to this change (defined as 'any
>>> change which leads to the seamless availability of non-libre software in
>>> Fedora products'), and I might have to re-consider my work on Fedora if
>>> this change were to be approved.
>> +1
>>
>> - -- Eric
>>
>> - --------------------------------------------------
>> Eric "Sparks" Christensen
>> Fedora Project
>>
>> sparks at fedoraproject.org - sparks at redhat.com
>> 097C 82C3 52DF C64A 50C2 E3A3 8076 ABDE 024B B3D1
>> - --------------------------------------------------
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>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 7
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:58:58 -0800
>> From: Adam Williamson <awilliam at redhat.com>
>> To: Fedora community advisory board
>> <advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <1390341538.26723.233.camel at adam.happyassassin.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>>
>> On Tue, 2014-01-21 at 13:09 -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 03:53:41PM -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>>> In the end the main question for me is if we are prepared to trust the
>> working groups to make the products they have been tasked with making,
>>>> or are we going to second guess them every step of the way?
>>>>
>>> Note -- this is a different question that has come to FESCo as well:
>>>
>>> https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/1195
>>>
>>> The answer there is that there will probably always be a degree of
>> oversight
>>> from FESCo over the Working Groups. In the short term, this oversight
>> will
>>> be much more intrusive and "get in the way" of what the working groups
>> want
>>> to do. As time goes on and decisions about what FESCo would like the
>>> working groups to do independently of FESCo become more apparent there
>> will
>>> be less of these cases because FESCo and the Working Groups will have
>>> sufficient cases to be more sure of the decision making boundaries.
>> I'd also suggest that the degree of trust and licence given to the WGs
>> by FESCo is natural going to depend on what they do with it.
>>
>> The fact that one of the earlier actions of this WG, before producing
>> anything at all concrete, is to propose a drastic dilution of Fedora's
>> founding principles...does not bode well for how much others involved in
>> the project are likely to trust it to act without oversight in the
>> future.
>> --
>> Adam Williamson
>> Fedora QA Community Monkey
>> IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
>> http://www.happyassassin.net
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 8
>> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 22:10:02 +0000
>> From: "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" <johannbg at gmail.com>
>> To: advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and
>> non-free software
>> Message-ID: <52DEF03A.3060106 at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>>
>> On 01/21/2014 09:23 PM, Eric H. Christensen wrote:
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA512
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 03:53:41PM -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
>>>>> In the end the main question for me is if we are prepared to trust the
>> working groups to make the products they have been tasked with making,
>>>>> or are we going to second guess them every step of the way?
>>> Really? What you are asking is hardly "every step of the way". What
>> you're asking for is a rewrite of the foundation for what the Project was
>> founded. You worry about losing users because we don't make it easy to use
>> non-FOSS software. I worry about losing contributors when you start
>> changing the beliefs of the Project. In my opinion, you haven't provided a
>> very good arguement as to why we should fundamentally change what we've
>> stood for for the past ten years.
>>
>> Let's not forget doing so for a new software installer integrated into a
>> *single* desktop environment of those many we maintain and deliver into
>> the hands of our end user base but it's good to know that the
>> workstation wg has already *decide* which desktop environment is going
>> to be representing which is as I had expected to be from the forming of
>> the wg's...
>>
>> JBG
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
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