The FSF doesn't endorse Gentoo?

[Etal]

Let's look at it from the other side: which distros do they endorse?

[keet]

It could be interpreted to mean that 'giving in' to non-free software encourages it and makes it less likely that similar purely free software will be developed. I'm not sure whether this is the case; what I know is that nvidia-drivers definitely make my system work better, and since I bought the card in the first place, I may as well use it to its full potential. By the way, virtualbox-ose has ACCEPT_LICENSE, I think.

As others have said, that's their philosophy, and I'll use Gentoo regardless of who advocates it or refuses to advocate it. Just thank goodness they're not the free hardware foundation. That would be a disaster.

Edit: Kongoni looks interesting.. its name is African in origin, like Ubuntu, but I really wonder if the release names have anything to do with the actual releases. Is 1.12.2 going to forsake the common morality and invent its own purpose? Is 1.12.2baseline2 going to be more practical and less otherworldly than its predecessor? Maybe their slogan should be 'Like Kubuntu, but esoteric'.

[yngwin]

They take an extreme ideological stand. Which is fine, they are free to do so.

Most Gentoo users are way more pragmatical. Which is also fine, because we are free to do so.

Just ignore their non-acceptance of Gentoo. Live and let live. Be free!
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"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln
Free Culture | Defective by Design | EFF

[Cyker]

You have to understand; They take an idealized view of how they think things should be, i.e. that all software should be free, a'la GPL.

As such, they can only endorse things that fully comply with the GPL, which Gentoo does not, and nor do many distros.

We are more practical folk and don't tend to give a crap about licences; As long as our shit works, we tend to go with whatever the path of least resistance is.

This isn't some slight/insult against Gentoo; It's just the way things are.
Weed is not significantly worse than cigarettes, but you wouldn't expect the chief of police to endorse weed!

This is a silly flamebait thread.

...

And I have totally fallen for it!

[energyman76b]

if they only would endorse gpl-only distris - that would be fine. But they also disqualify distris that might be free but make it possible to install software the FSF does not like.

The FSF hates user freedom.

That is the problem.
_________________
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

[poly_poly-man]

(from their perspective): it's not that it makes it too easy to install non-gpl software, it's that it makes it hard to not install non-gpl software.

(from my perspective): those guys are crazy.
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iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA

avatar: new version of logo - see topic 838248. Potentially still a WiP.

[Malakai]

Luckily I could care less what the FSF thinks of gentoo.

If gentoo did what they advocate, and made it hard to install a piece of software because of someone elses design philosophy, it would take away much of what makes gentoo the greatest distro, which is unbridled user choice in how and what you do with your system.

So yay gentoo, boo FSF. It is amusing they advocate freedom of choice and knock gentoo for actually putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to choice.
LOL@FSF. But they are notorious for putting (IMO selective) philosophy over actually making linux more usable and popular.

Now on my box, the ONLY piece of non-free software I use is the drivers for my video card. I would not run linux if I could not use closed source drivers, as the open source ones simply do not provide anywhere near the functionality or performance of the closed source drivers.
This is one of the things which brought me to gentoo in the first place. Being forced to use crippled open source video drivers on other distros made playing games I want to play on my every day desktop OS impossible.

Even ubuntu allows you to use closed source drivers. But they dont endorse that either. So while the FSF is a great thing, and is largely responsible for making linux what it is today; if all linux distros followed their strict rules, linux would be much less popular than it is today. So I respect their opinion, but if only using all true OSS software on your pc/os cripples its use, I mean what point does that serve? Everyone would just use windows instead, which is 99% closed source. A philosophically pure OS that no one wants to use, or a 99% philosophically pure OS that lots of people use. I mean, which is preferable?

[disi]

To be honest, I am not aware of any non free software installed. I know my wireless card wouldn't work without the firmware
What might be a problem are some codecs...

Anyway, if an OS cannot work with my hardware because of missing drivers then it fails it's existence?
_________________
Gentoo on Uptime Project - Larry is a cow

[Bill Cosby]

[mv]

[Ormaaj]

[doctork]

I find that fundamentalists, be they religious, political, or technogeek, are seldom worth listening to. There's an expression with describes the FSF approach. It's called "pissing into the wind."
--
doc

[Naib]

[psycho]

amazing. we can sit here with an entire operating system and complete set of copylefted applications (thanks to stallman's fsf) based on the gnu tools (largely thanks to stallman) and compiled using gcc (written by stallman), and complain that this freedom advocate who has basically handed us all this on a plate is "against freedom" because he asks us to continue sharing information rather than spreading code with sneaky licenses.

how is he limiting our freedom to advise us of these things? nobody is forcing us to use gnewsense, or stop using gentoo. on the other hand, if it weren't for stallman and his fsf, we wouldn't even have a gentoo to choose to use. stallman didn't just write the software with which we build linus's precious kernel and everything else, but he hacked the legal system in a way that made all this possible. "against freedom?", because he doesn't want to list our favorite distro among his favorites?

ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[energyman76b]

gcc was not 'written' by Stallmann.

And 'freedom' in FSF sense is not freedom at all.

FSF wants to take away the freedom to use what you want to use and only allowes to use what they deem 'Free enough'.

That has nothing to do with freedom in its true sense but is plain old authoritarianism.

'we know what is good for you. We know what you shall do. You do as we order'.
FSF in a nutshell.
_________________
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

[psycho]

i don't think they're "ordering" you to use the software they've provided for you: you're choosing to use it. you're perfectly free to not use it if that's what you prefer.

the only sense in which they "order" anything is via the legal force of the gpl. ok, there's a limited kind of truth to the claim that a "do whatever the hell you want with it" licence is "more free" than a copyleft...but real freedom involves not just the "freedom" to choose between a ridiculously limited range of options (like the "freedom" to elect one or the other of two basically identical presidential candidates) but the existence of a decent range of options from which to choose between. the gpl protects freedom in that greater sense: it not only gives you the pleasant experience of being "free" to choose between available options (which x11-style licences arguably do better, because you're also free to hoard the source), but it also ensures that the availability of those options is protected. hence all the hundreds of "forked" and "sub-" projects that build on code bases that might have (and in some cases almost certainly would have) been closed off if the code weren't copylefted.

some aspects of the gpl and the ideas around it may feel like "plain old authoritarianism", but that's not what they are. they're a more sophisticated anti-authoritarian approach than the liberal "everyone should be able to do anything" version of anti-authoritarianism (the idealism of which seems a lot more "fundamentalist" to me than the less extreme "...anything except limit other people's freedoms"). i'm grateful to the likes of stallman (who, ok, "contributed to" gcc, but more importantly the gpl). if my freely choosing to use this software (nothing is preventing me using windows or whatever else) carries with it an obligation that i pass this freedom on to others, i don't have a big problem with that. if i don't like it, nobody is forcing me to use it: i can go buy proprietary software like everyone else. i don't see how the obligations that go with a product i'm being freely offered and am free to reject can be called "authoritarian" as though they were being imposed on me.

bashing stallman and the fsf for their philosophy while reaping all the benefits of it, is like coming in here on a gentoo system and bashing gentoo. we're choosing to use this stuff, so we can either be happy with it or contribute to improving it. dissing the people who just served you a big free meal as "fundamentalists" or whatever seems just a tad ungrateful.

[energyman76b]

no, they 'order' people arround. Or at least, they try it. They only endorse distributions that prevent people installing 'unwanted' software. If a distribution makes it possible, even after jumping through loops to install 'unfree' software, they hate it.

They want the distris to force people only use stuff approved by the FSF.

And that is anti-freedom.

The benefits? Hmm... glibc is only by name a gnu project. Almost all work done by a guy who hates the FSF. gcc is only by name a gnu project. Binutils? Same. The rest? Replaceable.
_________________
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

[psycho]

if i "only endorse" product X i am not "ordering" you to use product Y. how does their endorsing one distro prevent you from using another? why should they endorse every distro you want them to endorse?

as for "forcing" people to "jump through hoops", what, you mean leaving people to download and compile non-free packages themselves, rather than pre-packaging them? again, what's unreasonable about that? is the vegetarian next door "authoritarian" because she not only refuses to "endorse" your different choices, but also (the bitch!) refuses to cook you up a steak?

please...it is not "anti-freedom" to refuse to participate in the use of non-free software. we are all still "free" to do it. i do it myself, so i can use the 3d features of my nvidia cards and collaborate (via openoffice) with users of ms word, and so on. nothing the fsf says or does prevents me from doing so. on the contrary, they provide me with software that HELPS me to do so, if that's what i choose to do. they do NOT limit my freedom, except in that one sense that (via the gpl) they try to prevent me from limiting others' freedoms.

if software freedom (in the fsf sense) matters to you, then i can see why not being on the list of endorsed distros could also matter. but if not, then who gives a @#% anyway? this thread was kicked off by presenting gentoo's "do whatever you want" freedom as superior to the fsf's "do whatever you want so long as it doesn't limit other people's freedoms" freedom. i agree that it feels better from the perspective of an individual user, so for most of us (myself included), because we're basically selfish, this is what we choose. fine. but it's one thing to say, "you know what? i don't really care that much about software freedom, i just want the system that works best for me"; and quite another to say, "those fsf fundamentalists are opposed to our freedom!". that's throwing dirt at people who have done a lot to help us, and nothing to hurt us. if we want to preach about authoritarianism and "freedom", we can go learn from the fsf, because they have thought the issues through, long and hard. if we just want to enjoy using gentoo, fine, the fsf is not preventing us from doing this. i don't see the point in throwing dirt at them.

[speeddemon]

[sera]

[speeddemon]

[cord]

Gentoo could be configured to be FSF-approved if there wasn't non-alternative packages in the base system meta package (stage3).

[Ant P.]

Does it matter? Enough to dig this up after 8 years?

[cord]

Why doesn't?

[pjp]