Plan for tomorrows (20080522) FESCO meeting

Alexandre Oliva aoliva at redhat.com
Thu May 22 04:58:25 UTC 2008


On May 21, 2008, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 21 May 2008 21:35:09 -0300
> Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat.com> wrote:

>> On May 21, 2008, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:

>> > Given your preference to not work in a manner which would be compatible
>> > with Fedora Engineering practices,

>> This is a very unfair assumption.  I just have had access to facts
>> that you apparently didn't.  Either that or you're being intentionally
>> obnoxious in sending me down this wild goose chase.

> I wouldn't send you on a goose chase.

Thank you.

> Can you point me to where you've approached the upstream kernel
> maintainers about this?

I haven't.  I'm told others have, and have been ridiculed.  From what
I gather from the LKML archives and personal experiences there, I have
no reason to disbelieve them.

>> > I'm not sure there is a way out.  However perhaps you can enlist
>> > some help from someone that would be willing to do that.
>> 
>> Finding someone else to do it might enable more patches to be posted,
>> but it wouldn't make it possible to achieve the goal.

> Because?

Because upstream doesn't want to achieve this goal, and actively
refuses to accept changes essential to get there.

> If those patches get integrated, then wouldn't the parts you find
> objectionable be gone?

Not all of them, no.

>> >> One of us is missing something.  How would a comps group prevent the
>> >> accidental installation of say non-Free kernel or firmware packages
>> >> brought in through unintended dependencies, for a user who wants to
>> >> make sure no such software is installed, for example?

>> > Fine, a fair point.  Create a Free spin via a kickstart file.

>> Still no use, unless the spin comes with its own separate repository,
>> never contaminated by non-Free Software.  At which point users might
>> as well switch to BLAG.

> I don't understand that at all.  You're suggesting that Fedora would
> have to split up the actual repositories in order to accomplish your
> goal?

No.  I'm suggesting that a fedora-freedom package that conflicts with
the non-Free packages in the main repository would be a simpler way to
enable users to choose not to let non-Free Software sneak into their
computers.

> So you propose to have this virtual package updated constantly to
> account for new dependencies on what _should_ be mostly firmware
> packages as they show up?

Yup, except for the 'constantly'.  Fortunately, there's not so much
non-Free stuff in Fedora.  Yes, it is error-prone, and I'm all ears to
listen to to better suggestions on how to accomplish this.  Ruling out
all non-Free Software from Fedora would certainly make this much
simpler, but I'm not going to count on that just yet ;-)

>> >> And largely misunderstood while at that.  Not by everyone who objected
>> >> to it, for sure.
>> 
>> > I don't think there's been a large misunderstanding.  Simply two
>> > differing opinions on the matter.
>> 
>> Like, a number of people vehemently objected to the idea of replacing
>> the current kernel with linux-libre.  I hadn't proposed anything even
>> close to it.  That's a large misunderstanding to me.

> I certainly didn't think you intended to _replace_ the main kernel
> package.  But I don't agree with even providing a completely different
> alternative "kernel-libre" package.  If it can't be built as a flavor
> of the existing kernel package, then I don't see it being approved for
> inclusion.

So much for http://www.linux-books.us/fedora_core_0001.php

  Fedora Core is a complete desktop and server operating system
  created entirely with open source software.

I'm pretty sure in the good old days something along these lines used
to be on Fedora's front page, and that Fedora's mission statement
didn't weasel out of it.

But I still see people advertising today that 'freedom is a feature'.
Unfortunately, it feels like it's buggy in several ways, and the bugs
reported in this regard get responses along the lines of
CLOSED/UPSTREAM and CLOSED/WONTFIX :-(

And 'infinite freedom' is like a bad joke :-(

Oh well...

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}




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