Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement

11 Antworten [Letzter Beitrag]
jxself
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Beigetreten: 09/13/2010
Lef
Lef
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Beigetreten: 11/20/2021

I assume it will be recorded for later viewing?

andermetalsh
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Beigetreten: 01/04/2013

The state? When some GNU folks from Guix are helping some propietary CUDA crap for GUIX on "unnoficial channels", Id'd say the state it's VERY bad.

https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-hpc-non-free/-/blob/master/non-free/cuda.scm

I won't support any propietary software ever.

koszkonutek
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Beigetreten: 03/19/2020

Are those the same folks who maintain Guix?

Also, is there a particular reason why we should be concerned about it? Given that Guix supports using custom channels, someone would do that at some point anyway

andermetalsh
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Beigetreten: 01/04/2013

Someone, as a random "somebody", maybe. But from a Guix creator and now maintainer, ahem.

https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-hpc-non-free/-/commit/cb2c8ec608c85d0cfd61a215ca75b171a25a39ff

https://gitlab.inria.fr/lcourtes

https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-hpc-non-free/-/blob/master/inria/tainted/storm.scm

The best "promotion" for CUDA is /dev/null and ditto for the rest of propietary software.

On separate channels, so does Debian, but openly, without the hypocrisy.

And Guix it's a great idea, but there are libre standards and drivers for GPU computing.
Ludovic should try working with and adapting these first.

Lef
Lef
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Beigetreten: 11/20/2021

I agree with jself that Debian's non-free repo is essentially helping to develop non-free software, and I agree that Ludo' doing it with CUDA is the same.

However for me personally I am more lenient on drivers. If helping someone get a blob on a free OS allows them to use a free OS, then progress was made. It's not ideal, but it's progress for that person.

Avron

I am a translator!

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Beigetreten: 08/18/2020

While I recently bought computers specifically because they work without non-free software to nearly the best degree currently feasible, I find it difficult to convince people to do so because that restricts the choice to computers no more produced since a long time or to very expensive computers which are not that common (and given how scarce these choices are, should they suddenly become popular, it could make it even more difficult to find such computers).

Getting new hardware with good enough specifications to allow writing free software that make them work well, and without any legal restriction that would prevent from doing so (or from reverse engineering the non-free software) seems essential.

About the gratis distribution of non-free firmware or drivers:
- distros that do it allow users to use their current hardware with a free OS but may also contribute to keep users ignorant
- distros that don't do it allow users not to be mislead into using non-free software, but they can't be adopted by people who have insufficiently supported hardware

Developing free software for hardware for which there is currently none could largely improve the situation, so any effort or guidance towards making that happen is probably good.

However, I am puzzled to see some people (mainly following one clever person actually) saying that is their goal and recently suggesting that non-free firmware or drivers should be in every distro to encourage people to reverse engineer them. Such firmware or drivers have been in the most used distros for a long time, so they are already available for people interested in reverse engineering.

andermetalsh
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Beigetreten: 01/04/2013

Well, I disagree. Today it's easier than ever to work with free software. My Intel Nuc it's supported by Linux-libre modulo the sound card (and it's supported by free drivers and firmware, https://github.com/thesofproject/sof-bin/ but it's really tricky to set even on propietary OSes), and the wireless drivers, but a USB compatible dongle with Atheros support it's deadly cheap on any bargain store.

Also, on RE drivers, it's been more than a decade with Radeon semi-free drivers, which IMHO it's in worse state than with Nouveau, and yet we don't have any free Radeon firmware.

Worse, my laptops card was one of the supported by RadeonHD, and the X.org guys deprecated the support for it.

Maybe there will be a better hope with HyperbolaBSD and Xenocara (Puffyland's X.org fork), as the legacy devices
are disabled because of bugs *but* if you recompile the base you are able to enable these drivers at your own risk.

Lef
Lef
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Beigetreten: 11/20/2021

> Today it's easier than ever to work with free software

and suppose you don't live in "today"? Suppose you live in Nepal where having any computer is a luxury, let alone being able to spend $600 on an librebooted x200 from another continent, to use software that barely, if ever, supports your own language?

Suppose you work for a university's machine learning department, and your budget chairman has decided not to approve your request for spending tens of thousands of dollars on new graphics cards to replace your CUDA ones because they need a blob?

It seems reasonable to me to "support" non-free drivers for the computers that people unfortunately happen to already own.

libredrs

I am a member!

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Beigetreten: 01/29/2012

...

andermetalsh
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Beigetreten: 01/04/2013

What? I don't own a librebooted machine, even.
Just a cheap Intel NUC where all hardware
except the internal wireless card (by bad luck
because drivers for *similar* chipsets do exist).

On the supported language, how's that related to
propietary distros? As if the gexttext strings
were copyrighted...

Also, on impoverished countries, we need to fight
for libre software more than ever. If not,
everything you get with propietary drivers after a few
years it's a brick.

lanun
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Beigetreten: 04/01/2021

"Whether you call the program open source of free software, as long as it is free software then it is a contribution and I appreciate it."

--Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement.