Why Arch is not 100% Free

arnuld · 2007-12-10 16:05:32

I see there are Proprietary packages in Arch like Skype, JRE and Real-Player. I wanted to know Why Arch suports Proprietary Softwares. I used Arch for a much longer time and have noticed that Arch does not distringuish between non-fre and free softwares e.g. on Archwiki it is advised to install non-free ttf-ms-fonts and it is not told there that it is proprietary package. The day I came to know ttf-ms-fonts are proprietary , I removed them from my installation.

Then I thought of a better solution that we can have a different repository named <Proprietary> (like Community, Core etc.) and we can push all proprietary softwares onto it, giving all users full control, choice and flexibility, which is what Arch promotes.

Any views ?

( I had exactly this comunication on #archlinux and was totally abused there and #archlinux community started to say things like this:

hey Free facist.
Wow arnuld, you will really like Fedora.
go and fuck with RMS.

after thats I felt ashamed as an Arch user and never advised any of my friends to use Arch. I still wanted to know what Arch forums folks have to say about this.)

FeatherMonkey · 2007-12-10 16:21:02

KISS to my mind it fits that philosophy perfectly as it stands.

As has been pointed out(Albeit badly perhaps) you have other distros who's philosophy fits RMS's standpoint better.

Cerebral · 2007-12-10 16:27:50

You already have full control, choice, and flexibility, as indicated in your own post - "The day I came to know ttf-ms-fonts are proprietary, I removed them from my installation" - we give you the freedom to add or remove them as you wish.

An extra repo doesn't add any extra freedom, control, choice, or flexibility - it adds segregation and categorization, and perhaps makes it easier to exclude certain kinds of software. However, this is not the point of our repos, it's the point of licenses.

We're moving toward a proposed system where you can specify exactly which licenses you want installed on your system, and pacman will only install those. It's not implemented yet, but it's the proper way to do this.

As for Arch's standpoint, we've never claimed to be an "only-free-software" distro.

As for the off-topic discussion about the forum behaviour, that's despicable treatment, but it's what you get on IRC in general. It's too bad #archlinux has become like the rest of the IRC world.

bwalk · 2007-12-10 16:29:08

I don't see a problem here. You don't like proprietary software, you don't install it. On the other hand, if the software is non-free there has to be some legal statement or a licence you have to accept, depending on the software.

Please don't be influenced by some morons on irc, they feel useless, so they hang out there and try do provoke other users. Most of the arch community is much more sophisticated than the usual communities.

Blind · 2007-12-10 16:33:51

Well said, Cerebral.

tankmcp · 2007-12-10 16:40:54

As I understand things, using proprietary software is not an issue. These packages are installed by the user at his choice, not installed by default on the distribution disk. There is no need to put proprietary packages into a separate repository for several reasons. First, it would make things more confusing. Second, I do not perceive a difference between Arch offering differing packages in a separate repository and Arch offering them at all. Third, every user has full control anyway, there are no surprise installations of proprietary software packages.

I like having proprietary packages available because they help me get my work done. ttf-ms-fonts help me collaborate with others still using MS products. I like viewing commercial DVDs with libdvdcss and listening to mp3's. Both require proprietary packages, as does my ATI Catalyst driver. For Arch NOT to provide this would render my system undesirable, if not unusable. Yet the distribution install did not place these proprietary packages on my computer, I chose them. As I understand things, I am under no violation of license for using these packages, and neither is Arch.

BTW, I am sorry you were treated harshly on the irc channel. Our community should be able to express their differences of opinion in a polite manner.

Regards.

crouse · 2007-12-10 16:46:53

bwalk wrote:

Most of the arch community is much more sophisticated than the usual communities.

Yes it is. Not EVERYONE on IRC gave the OP flack, I didn't IRC in general is an unregulated free-for-all, but you need to have thick skin to survive there lol. Take things with a grain of salt, and realize that nothings perfect and that just because a few people didn't agree with you doesn't mean everyones against you either. I find consistently that the Arch Linux community is as stated above is much more sophisticated than the usual communities. and it's something that I appreciate alot. I sure wouldn't stop recommending Arch because of an IRC discussion.

I wanted to know Why Arch suports Proprietary Softwares.

Just because a software is proprietary doesn't by default make it bad...... as stated, it would be relatively simple to remove ANY software you don't want from your Arch system, the control is in YOUR hands. That's the great thing about Arch Linux, the control.

kensai · 2007-12-10 16:48:00

Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit.
- Torvalds, Linus (2004-10-26). Message to linux-kernel mailing list. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.

Yeah, Linus Torvalds said it best. So please, don't suck on RMS.

Last edited by kensai (2007-12-10 16:48:49)

arnuld · 2007-12-10 17:24:04

Cerebral wrote:

However, this is not the point of our repos, it's the point of licenses.
We're moving toward a proposed system where you can specify exactly which licenses you want installed on your system, and pacman will only install those. It's not implemented yet, but it's the proper way to do this.

you identified the problem very well. Yes, that is not repos problem, that is license problems . I never thought of that

arnuld · 2007-12-10 17:25:41

bwalk wrote:

Most of the arch community is much more sophisticated than the usual communities.

yes, i can see that from the replies here. It is so good

Last edited by arnuld (2007-12-10 17:25:53)

kumico · 2007-12-10 17:32:30

i think your ideas are completely ridiculous so im gonna say this a s nicely as possible ,,
i am personally sick of your poisonous spamming so **** off with you wining is zealotry already,
also, where do you get off making such baseless claims as 'JRE' is propriatory ?
ps google is your friend, im sure you can find 'purely free(TM)' distros out there cos arch is clearly not for you

arnuld · 2007-12-10 17:33:41

tankmcp wrote:

Third, every user has full control anyway, there are no surprise installations of proprietary software packages.

that I know. I was just surprised that I was not told the I am installing a no-free package. I meant, there are around 1000s of different softwares in repos and I feel very difficult on searching for licenses for all of those. So, I thought it will a better idea if I could read the license on my hard-disk, installed by pacman along with the package itself.

BTW, majority of package are Free anyway

tankmcp wrote:

I like viewing commercial DVDs with libdvdcss and listening to mp3's. Both require proprietary packages, as does my ATI Catalyst driver.

Aye.. I think you are mistaken. libdvdcss is under GPL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss

and I am not sure but I think an mp3 is played using libmad which is also under GPL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mad/

tankmcp wrote:

BTW, I am sorry you were treated harshly on the irc channel. Our community should be able to express their differences of opinion in a polite manner.
Regards.

thanks for saying those words. Now I see , folks on Arch forums are much polite and really sophisticated

Last edited by arnuld (2007-12-10 17:34:42)

arnuld · 2007-12-10 17:39:23

kumico wrote:

i think your ideas are completely ridiculous so im gonna say this a s nicely as possible ,,
i am personally sick of your poisonous spamming so **** off with you wining is zealotry already,
also, where do you get off making such baseless claims as 'JRE' is propriatory ?
ps google is your friend, im sure you can find 'purely free(TM)' distros out there cos arch is clearly not for you

here comes the man from #archlinux. care to read the license ?

http://www.java.com/en/download/license.jsp

skottish · 2007-12-10 17:42:30

arnuld wrote:

Aye.. I think you are mistaken. libdvdcss is under GPL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss

Just out of curiosity. Libdvdcss has been declared illegal in many countries. Is it possible to be both GPL and deemed to be breaking international copyright law? It seems like a contradiction to me.

PJ · 2007-12-10 17:49:56

Remeber reading something about this a while back on the arch-dev-public mailing list, with a much nicer solutions for the problem. Here is the feature request. I almost missed that you (arnuld) have already posted some stuff in that feature request thread, guess I don't need to inform you then. I am posting this anyway since I find it to be a better solution.

It is not really an issue for myself since I am using both proprietary and open-source.

Last edited by PJ (2007-12-10 17:54:07)

buttons · 2007-12-10 17:55:43

skottish wrote:

arnuld wrote:
Aye.. I think you are mistaken. libdvdcss is under GPL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss
Just out of curiosity. Libdvdcss has been declared illegal in many countries. Is it possible to be both GPL and deemed to be breaking international copyright law? It seems like a contradiction to me.

Not at all.

And it does not break "copyright" law, as you put it. It breaks the DMCA (or its equivalent), which makes circumventing a technology intended to restrict your copy practices illegal.

A program which does this can be 100% free (as in the source code is available, you are free to modify it, and in the case of the GPL, you must also make your source code available), yet break other laws.

On topic:

Forking is always an option.

sm4tik · 2007-12-10 18:57:32

Funny. I just replied to this post and the next thing I notice I'm reading this here

buttons wrote:

Forking is always an option.

You're right there! But, let's be rational. If I don't share every thought with my best friend, I hope it doesn't mean we can't be friends anymore. Most of my friends go to McDonald's too

Cilyan · 2007-12-10 19:38:31

Why proprietary softwares disturbs you so much ? I mean, I care a lot more about companies releasing software that are not compatible with linux than proprietary linux compatible softs. Free software is good, but we cannot call for companies to include linux in their software plan and deny them their right to conceal their work from challengers. It is inherent to our world. And to spread linux, we need these software, even if free licensed ones would have been better.

Is it welcoming nVidia, developing Nouveau in their back ? Is it congratulating Mozilla to steal their code and rename Firefox Iceweasel ?

I'm glad that Arch is not an only-free-software distribution, because I do support the effort of these companies which care about us, linux users.

Cilyan

buttons · 2007-12-10 20:01:14

Cilyan wrote:

Is it welcoming nVidia, developing Nouveau in their back ? Is it congratulating Mozilla to steal their code and rename Firefox Iceweasel?

I believe you're misunderstanding things just a smidge. Or else you've merely provided the worst examples imaginable to prove your point.

"Steal" is defining as taking what is not yours. Most of Mozilla's code is under a relatively unrestrictive license that allows forking the project. Because Mozilla is required (by law) to enforce their trademark brand "Firefox," and ensure that "Firefox" is the same everywhere, a fork cannot be named "Firefox." Some folks took offense to the non-free artwork and binary-only TalkBack addon, and so needed to create a forked browser named IceWeasel.

Is that stealing? No. Forking is 100% legal and actively encouraged in an open-source environment because it prevents stagnation. Do you remember XFree86? No? Ever wondered where X.org came from? Look it up. I'll wait.

It is, in many respects, one of the greatest advantages in open source software. You don't like it? Fork your own. But you'd better release the source code.

As for NV:

Nvidia has never, ever, once indicated they wouldn't like to open source their driver software. They cannot.

Here, take a gander at the OpenGL Specs. Pick one. Every single one has an IP status field. If that's not public domain or some other unrestricted license, they CANNOT OPEN IT.

It just so happens NV's card support is also crap, relatively speaking. We in the open source community are used to "There are problems. Someone will fix them today or tomorrow." We're spoiled.

For instance, NV doesn't support XvMC on the 8000 series cards, and probably never will. There's no reason for them to. Companies don't want it. It's useless for them to put resources into something that a few users would like. In an open source world, a "few users" means it gets done tomorrow.

I'm a happy NVidia has linux support, and I support them by buying their cards. But the drivers still suck. When someone has open source video drivers that work well, I'll stop supporting them. Because inevitably my problems will get fixed faster, and better. Because they'll be fixed by people that care.

/rant

lloeki · 2007-12-10 20:11:07

I sincerely think the nvidia linux devs are really doing their best within the boundaries imposed on them by various factors (incl. nvidia-the-company policy). I also think id software and zerowing folks are really doing great work. those are only examples among others... while RMS ideas are important (else that GPL sauce wouldn't have caught up), Linus is indeed damn right sometimes. we just can't live in a monochrome world.

as for looking onto what non-free software you may have on your computer, specific license terms of some given package is put under /usr/share/licenses/ for you to read.

about that IRC dumb*ss, that Godwin is still just as right as he was almost 20 years ago (50 in fact, given the rethorics thing)... I guess the internet only makes us more exposed to the worst sh*t of humanity (and hopefully to the best too ).

Last edited by lloeki (2007-12-10 20:13:49)

Misfit138 · 2007-12-10 21:21:22

Blind wrote:

Well said, Cerebral.

+1

I use any and all Free, non-free, and proprietary software I can get my hands on. If it is what I need, and it works, I use it.
In a perfect world, it would all be truly free, and I wish it were, but I have never thought twice about installing the nvidia driver rather than the xf86-video-nv. Nvidia just works, and that's what I need.
One of the things I love about Arch is that this is all up to me, the user.

cactus · 2007-12-10 22:25:56

!simmer-down

This whole thread seems pretty knee-jerk, all the way around (from both sides of the discussion).

Please remember though, that Arch is generally not about babysitting the user.
Arch is more about trying to make a distribution that "doesn't get in your way". It isn't about doing everything for you, or removing the need for end-user-thinking.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way

"Arch Linux users fully manage the system on their own. The system itself will offer little assistance, except for a simple set of maintenance tools that are designed to perfectly relay the user's commands to the system."

My advice is to research what you install on your system. Know what your system is composed of, and doing, at least at a high level.
Who knows...Through that minuscule amount of research, you might learn something about the software you use every day, and appreciate the authors who wrote it a bit more.

hussam · 2007-12-10 22:39:55

I think the issue extends beyond proprietary and FOSS.

We should distinguish between good proprietary software and software with troublesome licenses. There's legal proprietary software and illegal proprietary software.

For example, Nvidia drivers, Adobe flash plugin and Sun's JRE are proprietary but distributions are legally allowed to distribute them. This is fine and perfectly legal. This is good proprietary software.

Other packages with bad licenses such as Microsoft fonts and the binary codecs package shouldn't really be distributed by distributions because Microsoft doesn't actually allow that. This is BAD proprietary software.

Last edited by hussam (2007-12-10 22:40:32)

phrakture · 2007-12-10 22:46:28

It's been said a lot here. Arch isn't an ideological distro. We never declared anywhere that you can't install realplayer. If you want to, you can install IE and run it in wine - I don't care.

Cerebral said it best, so please refer to what he said. However, there was some very disappointing posts in this thread, notably by kumico. So, this thread gets a big ol' lockage.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-12-10 16:05:32

Why Arch is not 100% Free

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Re: Why Arch is not 100% Free

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