Pip and easy_install
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I posted about this in Issues, but I just noticed it's not there anymore.
Pip and easy_install allow easy installation of non-free/proprietary software, as well as free software. I don't think this is a good thing to have in a fully free distro, but it's also quite useful for free software. Shouldn't users, at the very least, be warned about it?
wget and tools for adding PPAs also allow easy installation of nonfree
software. Why these should be included in Trisquel and shouldn't warn
users about it unlike easy_install? I don't see any significant
difference between these problems.
Allowing installation of nonfree software is not a problem, e.g. GNU
IceCat can add nonfee addons and it's planned for Linux-libre to be able
to load nonfree firmware without recommending it when it's not
installed. Both these packages are modified to not recommend installing
nonfree software (by having a list of only addons known to be free and
by not showing names of nonfree firmware files).
What you say is correct, except that easy_install/pip are pretty much in the same category as aptitude.
For instance:
sudo aptitude install skype
would be considered installation of non-free software.
How is
sudo pip install module
(module is non-free) any different? Is it because it's not on Trisquel's repos? In that case, why not leave in the link code that Mozilla puts in Firefox regarding Adobe Flash. It's not on Trisquel's repos and it would leave the decision up to the user.
Of course, that won't happen because Adobe Flash is non-free.
I'm not talking about local installation of non-free software (I can install WINE which can run non-free software if I choose or if I download Adobe Flash and plug it into Web Browser,) I'm talking about using software that *recommends* non-free software.
> What you say is correct, except that easy_install/pip are pretty much
> in the same category as aptitude.
I.e. they are programs using some external database to find packages to
install. There is no problem in easy_install or pip other than possibly
using PyPI as default package index.
> How is
>
> sudo pip install module
>
> (module is non-free) any different? Is it because it's not on
> Trisquel's repos? In that case, why not leave in the link code that
> Mozilla puts in Firefox regarding Adobe Flash. It's not on Trisquel's
> repos and it would leave the decision up to the user.
There is a difference -- Mozilla visibly asks the user to install the
plugin even if they didn't plan to (e.g. just visiting a random site),
while easy_install/pip do it when the user asks them to do it.
After reading the FSDG again I agree that PyPI shouldn't be used by
default in free distros. The specific sentence at
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html:
> Nor should the distribution refer to third-party repositories that are
> not committed to only including free software; even if they only have
> free software today, that may not be true tomorrow.
Making a package index listing only FSDG-compatible packages and using
it instead of PyPI would solve this problem, and would not make sharing
free Python packages more difficult (assuming other package developers
want to use it).
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