Connecting to proprietary web services (was Re: F14: what to do about pino / twitter)

[Adam Williamson]

On Fri, 2010-10-01 at 20:29 -0400, Gerald Henriksen wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:03:51 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, 2010-10-01 at 15:50 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> >> On Fri, 2010-10-01 at 14:52 -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> >> > This is definitely scope creeping the discussion here, but I'm coming
> >> > round to the viewpoint that Fedora shoudn't ship any application in
> >> > the default install whose primary purpose is to connect to proprietary
> >> > web services, or at least not ones configured by default to do so.
> >> > (All apps are of course free to be in the repositories).
> >> > 
> >> > This would dovetail nicely with making it not suck to install applications.
> >> 
> >> I don't think this is a useful direction to take the F14/pino problem
> >> into. If we stop installing applications that are useful for users, then
> >> the users will go somewhere else. 
> >
> >This is the same argument you can make with proprietary hardware
> >drivers. Ultimately we've always agreed with the FSF position that
> >encouraging the use of proprietary software just makes it less likely
> >that free software will be written, so we shouldn't do it.
> >
> >The situation here is exactly analogous. If we choose to, say, ship a
> >client configured to connect to identi.ca by default instead, we're
> >putting our weight behind freedom in a very important area, just as
> >important as hardware support.
> 
> Pino does not connect to anything be default, you need an account in
> order to connect to either twitter or identi.ca with a dedicated
> client like pino.

In that case, IMHO, it's fine.

> The bigger question this brings up is where does Fedora draw the line.

Yeah, indeed. There's a big fuzzy area.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
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