3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

[MJ Ray]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams at gnu.org> wrote:
> How about sticking to the topic at hand instead of flipping this
> thread into something that is not important at this point?

Yes, how about it?  On that note [another message]:

> Mark, you do realise that `donated computers' is not the same as
> `donated software', let alone `they require non-free software to run'?

I thought one complaint was about the Nokia N800 computers?

Also, note that part of the problem in that "donated computers"
section was that they were running Unix and that sometimes they "could
not replace a machine's operating system with a free one" but once
they could, they "replaced the machine instead".

> Both of
> your messages have had nothing of relevance to say about the whole
> issue of the FSFE distributing non-free software to people.

In fact, I noted that I don't see a fundamental problem in FSFE
distributing these computers, but maybe including such development
platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans
Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.  But that was
ignored, as people prefer wild claims about free software projects.

I'm happy to stay on-topic if others stop straying into lies about
projects I work on, or asking about them.

Matt Lee <mattl at gnu.org> wrote:
> Binary blobs? I believe the kernel Debian ships still contains the non-free
> firmwares that gNewSense removes?

Yes, it does.  The project made debian GNU/Linux depend on that type
of non-free software before some free software advocates pointed out
the problem clearly.  FSF is still not really getting this message
across: I can't find an essay about it on the new FSF and GNU websites
any more.  I found only a few paragraphs in 2002's
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html and very recent
pages like http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/firmware/view which seems
to update old contributions for debian like
http://doolittle.icarus.com/~larry/fwinventory/2.6.17.html

There was also a bit of a debian release management misjudgement IMO.
Anyway, as a result, the non-free firmwares have a special permission
into the next release, from a whole-project vote.  I think that
happened partly because the project wasn't willing to drop that much
hardware support so "close" to a release.  The suggestion that they
should be allowed "as long as required" was rejected, so I hope that
debian can incorporate gNewSense's good work swiftly after etch.  

In short: to get rid of the firmwares in debian, remind/help the
debian project as soon as possible after the release, then encourage
the next release to come as soon as possible.  I think the project
will listen to actual and potential users about things like this, but
if you leave it to a few contributors on the fringes like me, it will
happen, but may take longer.

> When Debian ships a browser that doesn't
> ask me every five minutes to install non-free software in the form of Flash,
> and stops distributing non-free software from its own website, then your
> statement would be correct.

Reportbug iceweasel or Request For Package gnu-iceweasel, please, or
ask an appropriate debian user to.

As for the project's own website, the logo bugs are being fixed
(finally).

So again, most of these bugs are being fixed.


"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams at gnu.org> wrote:
>    > Debian still has a non-free Java system [...]
>    Which of the java systems in debian [...] is non-free?
> Sun Java.

Point of information: Sun Java is not in debian.  It may be after they
finally GPL it.

> Then there is also a non-free flash program in Debian,
> despite the existance of gnash.

gnash will be in debian (lenny) and non-free flash program isn't.

> Your petty attempts at point out "bugs" that have been fixed, or are
> being fixed are beyond silly.

So stop doing it about debian, please.

> You know perfectly well that Debian is
> _not_ willing to remove any of the non-free software that it is
> distributing. [...]

Actually, I know that removals happen pretty often, like
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=345743
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=375355
or if you mean the hosted non-free stuff, rather than distributed
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=325363
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=400850
(random web search result examples)

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Webmaster/web developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop maker,
developer of koha, debian, gobo, gnustep, various mail and web s/w.
Workers co-op @ Weston-super-Mare, Somerset http://www.ttllp.co.uk/