Arch Linux

Phalkon

Member

Registered: 2014-10-19

Posts: 117

pacman filtered for only free software

Hi,

is there a way to ensure that user use only free software?
Also, how much of a inconvenience this would be?

It seem as a good idea to be really in control of my computing, but I'm still quite new to this, so I'm not sure what to think about it.

Thank you for any answers.

---

Why Linux? Because it doesn't hide anything from you. It puts you so closely in control of your machine that you can feel its heartbeat.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,593

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

Not really. However, this is the goal of Parabola, an Arch spinoff distro. You might want to check it out.

Phalkon

Member

Registered: 2014-10-19

Posts: 117

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

Not really. However, this is the goal of Parabola, an Arch spinoff distro. You might want to check it out.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

---

Why Linux? Because it doesn't hide anything from you. It puts you so closely in control of your machine that you can feel its heartbeat.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

Alternatively, if you have coding skills, you could look at pacman's code and work out how to add filter-by-license functionality.

https://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.git/

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,400

Website

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

That would be difficult - is "custom" free?   That includes MIT...

---

PGP Key: F99FFE0FEAE999BD

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,548

Website

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

It seems all of xorg has 'custom' licenses too.  I started writing a script to at least check all currently installed packages - but I was amazed at how many packages have custom licenses.  I quickly gave up when I realized I couldn't find a reliable way to determine what was "free" by parsing /usr/share/licenses/*.  It's not even just rare corner cases that would be challenges.  It seems parabola's approach is the best: just make sure non-free software never makes it into the repos.

If that is your goal - parabola seems to be the way to go.

But supporting free software by refusing to use non-free on principle is a bit like supporting starving children in 3rd world countries by fasting.  Refusing to use non-free software doesn't suddenly make donations go to open source developers or the FSF or to anyone else.  But it can actually make free software look bad in the eyes of those who may need convincing: when the local linux user is unable to interact with others in the workplace because they can't open "industry standard" file formats because of their choice of free software, all those fence-sitters only hear that linux and free software "doesn't work right".
</rant>

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,732

Website

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

empty@Arch ~ % vrms
[...]
However, there are 317 ambiguously licensed packages that vrms cannot certify.

Hmmm...

---

Are you infected with Wetiko?

Phalkon

Member

Registered: 2014-10-19

Posts: 117

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

But supporting free software by refusing to use non-free on principle is a bit like supporting starving children in 3rd world countries by fasting.  Refusing to use non-free software doesn't suddenly make donations go to open source developers or the FSF or to anyone else.  But it can actually make free software look bad in the eyes of those who may need convincing: when the local linux user is unable to interact with others in the workplace because they can't open "industry standard" file formats because of their choice of free software, all those fence-sitters only hear that linux and free software "doesn't work right".
</rant>

The original idea wasn't about supporting free software. Neither it was about protesting proprietary software. I was merely concerned that I have no way of knowing, what exactly is the software on my computer doing. As I understand it, the main idea about free software is to give users complete control over their computing.

Parabola is a nice distro. But there is still quite an issue with hardware support. It's quite hard to find hardware that would work with only free linux kernel modules, I haven't found any guides for that.

EDIT: It seems that mostly graphic cards and network cards can be problematic.

Last edited by Phalkon (2015-06-07 22:08:56)

---

Why Linux? Because it doesn't hide anything from you. It puts you so closely in control of your machine that you can feel its heartbeat.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,732

Website

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

It seems that mostly graphic cards and network cards can be problematic.

Because they require firmware which has licensing conditions which are incompatible with FSF policy.

---

Are you infected with Wetiko?

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,593

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

Which is a joke, IMO. Does it really bother them that much that the firmware is loaded from a file instead of a rom chip on the device?

Last edited by Scimmia (2015-06-08 07:22:11)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,732

Website

Re: pacman filtered for only free software

The point is the licensing issue -- the FSF are striving to encourage hardware manufacturers to make their code free (as in speech).

---

Are you infected with Wetiko?