[SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

Ridwan Rawriet · 2022-01-28 10:30:34

I'm just too shocked to find this out today. A proprietary software is sitting on the community repo whose numerous, arguably better FOSS alternatives are available. While free softwares like Brave was kicked out from the official repos. I know they were caught doing some questionable stuff but still it's free software. People can look at it's source code to detect malicious code.

What about Icecat? There are plenty of valid use cases for it. For example, it'll be perfectly fine for a laptop one uses for studying and not for browsing social media. It really deserves to be included in the official arch repos!

The more I think about this more unreasonable it seems to be. I'm new to free software, so please correct if I've made some mistakes and sorry for bad English.

Last edited by Ridwan Rawriet (2022-01-28 12:01:57)

Slithery · 2022-01-28 10:40:12

Nothing strange about this at all the repos have never been restricted to open source software, take the nvidia drivers as a classic example.

Pragmatism wrote:

Arch is a pragmatic distribution rather than an ideological one. The principles here are only useful guidelines. Ultimately, design decisions are made on a case-by-case basis through developer consensus. Evidence-based technical analysis and debate are what matter, not politics or popular opinion.
The large number of packages and build scripts in the various Arch Linux repositories offer free and open source software for those who prefer it, as well as proprietary software packages for those who embrace functionality over ideology.

The only deciding factor on which packages are in the repos and which are in the AUR are whether or not a developer/TU is interested in packaging it.

Lone_Wolf · 2022-01-28 11:37:10

Incase you prefer a system without any proprietary software* , check http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html .

One of the listed distros ( parabola ) is based on archlinux .

* most of firmware blobs are proprietary, not using them often results in performance / feature loss

Ridwan Rawriet · 2022-01-28 11:49:44

In case of Nvidia drivers there is not a valid alternative yet. The same thing cannot be achieved with nouveau. In case of browsers though, with other foss alternatives the same experience can be achieved.

However I understand arch's pragmatic approach and realize it's a good idea to provide people with options.
But I personally think it would be a better to not include proprietary software if there comparable alternatives exist because AUR is always an option. Like how AMD's proprietary drivers are not in the official repos since the foss one can do it well. Instead all the amdgpu-pro* reside in AUR instead. I also acknowledge the biggest weakness of this proposal. What can be considered as a valid alternative is subjective.
So hm, maybe arch's current approach is the most practical and realistic.

Slithery · 2022-01-28 12:07:50

Ridwan Rawriet wrote:

Like how AMD's proprietary drivers are not in the official repos since the foss one can do it well. Instead all the amdgpu-pro* reside in AUR instead.

That's not the reason that they're not in the official repos.

As I stated earlier, if a developer/TU wanted to package the amdgpu-pro drivers into the main repos there's nothing to stop them. The only reason it hasn't happened is a lack of interest/time.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-01-28 10:30:34

[SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

#2 2022-01-28 10:40:12

Re: [SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

#3 2022-01-28 11:37:10

Re: [SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

#4 2022-01-28 11:49:44

Re: [SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

#5 2022-01-28 12:07:50

Re: [SOLVED] Why is Vivaldi in official repos?

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