Following FSF Philosophy?

[Arjun Shankar]

Andrew:
> The install cd ships and installs some binary-only (thus non-free) kernel
> drivers.  AFAIK, if you remove the linux-restricted-modules packages, and do
> not install anything from the multiverse or restricted repositories, you
> have a completely DSFG free system.

Okey!

David:
> You can install and run vrms (virtual Richard M. Stallman) to check the
> 'purity' of your system :-) .

I'll get that right away... just to see. Though I'm not much of an FSF fanatic.

Alan:
> Depends how you define "following the principles of Free software".

> If you are a deeply committed rms fan, then the mere existence of
> non-free software on a machine makes the whole thing non-free. Ubuntu
> doesn't follow that approach.

I'm happier that Ubuntu doesn't follow that approach.

> RMS himself used a non-free platform
> to bootstrap development of the GNU tools - how could he do
> otherwise?

aha!

If there were an even more committed person (may lightning strike me
down for saying that), with the skills, and the vision of RMS (can
lightning strike the same person more than once?), I'd use GNU to
rewrite it, and keep going at it recursively till I'm sure I got a
_really_ clean system.

> If you have an ATI or nVidia card and want 3D (a perfectly
> reasonable thing to want), there is no free driver that suits.

> As much as possible, the default is to install only Free software, and
> at the same time give users a way to use non-Free software if they so
> choose.

I think thats fair enough, as far as "following the principles of Free
Software" is concerned.

> For one thing, it's called Ubuntu Linux, not Ubuntu GNU/Linux

Yeah, I was getting slightly bored with all the craze over recursive
acronyms. Though a couple of them here and there are fine.

Peter:
> And for those with Van Gogh's ear for music, RMS himself siniging "The
Free Software Song" :
>
> http://www.gnu.org/music/free-software-song.au

Heard that one. ;) Is it music? I sort of began to doubt that half way through.

Arjun