Rust has updated its trademark policy
There was some controversy here about whether Rust is free software, so I'd like to note that they have put out an updated trademark policy: https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-media-guide/
The trademark is now owned by the Rust Foundation, not Mozilla. I do not see any restriction on selling unmodified copies of Rust.
Yes, this appears to resolve the Rust trademark problem. It's very good news that the Rust Foundation is working on improving this.
The new policy also explicitly allows keeping the Rust name if you make modifications of the type typically made by distributions. This is similar to Libreoffice's trademark policy, and a lot better than Mozilla's trademark policy.
Are there any remaining issues with Rust's licensing or trademark policies at all then?
Nonfree software in Cargo crates remains a problem.
I believe a simple short term solution for making the cargo in Trisquel FSDG-compliant would be to just remove the default registry (that potentially contains nonfree software). This is sufficient for building abrowser, since abrowser's source package already contains all of its rust dependencies, and it uses cargo offline without connecting to the registry. (Cargo is not just a package manager, it is also a build system)
> Cargo is not just a package manager, it is also a build system
What a Swiss army knife. I bet it can also cook rusticini while singing the free software song.
>"since abrowser's source package already contains all of its rust dependencies, and it uses cargo offline without connecting to the registry"
Is this work-around always going to be available? Or will that be shut off at some point in the future?
The Hyperbola devs seem pretty certain that Rust is a dead-end.
I believe it also comes with an integrated macerator to process the residual non-free stuff, but it only works in unsafe mode so I never tried.
Well it's probably going to need an integrated macerator if it is going to make a proper rusticini.
Yes, there's nothing inherent about cargo that requires it to access the official registry. It is common to use Cargo offline and in fact, upstream Firefox and many other projects including GNU/Linux distributions require Rust crates to be vendored (included in the source tree, rather than downloaded at build time). You can also include your own libraries that aren't on the official registry, or even host your own Cargo registry.
As for the Hyperbola criticism of Rust, I addressed that above. They are opposed to the trademark policy of Rust, but the current trademark policy isn't an issue by the FSF standards that Trisquel follows. Such trademark policies have always been accepted in FSDG distros, as you can see by the fact that LibreOffice has long been included without any controversy. Cargo has the same issue as other programming language package managers like pip (Python), gem (Ruby), etc, so Rust isn't really special in that regard.
The Hyperbola project also seems to consider Rust bloated, but I think they would probably say the same about Trisquel as a whole, to be honest. Trisquel generally includes anything from Ubuntu as long as it is free and follows FSDG guidelines.
> The Hyperbola devs seem pretty certain that Rust is a dead-end.
I don't understand. "Amazon, Google, Microsoft..." what could go wrong?
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3606774/rust-language-moves-to-independent-foundation.html
https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/23/rust_moderation_team_quits
Pity, there truly are a couple of good ideas in Rust. I'll borrow them for my new project: Stainless-C.
Yes, this seems like it would solve the last remaining known FSDG problem.
As far as FSF guidelines are concerned, I think this clears up any issues. The concern was that Mozilla's trademark policy doesn't allow selling unmodified copies, but the trademark is no longer owned by Mozilla so that no longer applies, and there is no similar restriction in the Rust trademark policy.
The Hyperbola page on Rust trademarks still mostly applies, but the requirement of renaming modified versions does not conflict with FSF guidelines. LibreOffice has the same requirement (and is somehow included in Hyperbola from what I can tell). The Rust and Libreoffice trademark policies do carve out exceptions for when you can modify the software without renaming it, essentially for minor changes that a distribution would make, so distros are generally unaffected by the renaming requirement.
GNU FSDG dont mean Free Software Foundation (FSF) guidelines, the FSDG are Free System Distribution Guidelines. More information please read https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html
What is your point? I am aware of the acronym but they are still the guidelines released by the FSF.
> What is your point?
Keeping you safe from the pit of aeternal death of conflating the FSF and the GNU project. Next thing you know, you would be stuck in a loop calling Linux an operating system - forever!
On the FSDG page: "This page is maintained by the Free Software Foundation's Licensing and Compliance Lab"
Yes, now you've read the page. You are safe.
I've been on this forum for a while now, so I've read the FSDG many times.
I believe you. I was merely trying to interpret our friend iShareFreedom's post.
Yeah me too.
I think that iShareFreedom's message "GNU FSDG dont mean Free Software Foundation (FSF) guidelines" shows there's some questions and confusion in concretely dividing things between the FSF and the GNU Project. On the one hand yes the page says it's maintained by the FSF License Compliance lab but it's hosted on gnu.org, not fsf.org, and even then it's called the "GNU" FSDG (not the FSF's FSDG.) On the third hand if you look at the activity in the version control system the activity on the file is mostly from rms (who is involved with both FSF and GNU) and the *GNU* Webmasters. (See https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-structure.en.html which covers the GNU Webmasters and the rest of the GNU Project.)
Another such example is the Free Software Definition, which is in a similar position. I can confirm that discussions about updates to that happen on internal mailing lists for the GNU Project, as well as separately within the FSF. There are other examples too but my point is that this GNU FSDG and others all seems a bit too handwavy to me to concretely say this such things are solidly an FSF-only activity. And I don't know that there's really a need to classify them as being solely one or the other anyway. :)
Rust is back in the FSF Free Software Directory: https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Rust