[GNU-linux-libre] Recognizing the GNU system as a free distro

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

The GNU Guix project [0] is about producing (1) a package manager for
the GNU system, and (2) a distribution of the GNU system (currently on
top of Linux-Libre).  We would like the distribution to be officially
recognized as an offspring of the fully free distro family.  ;-)

Part (1) is essentially done.  Part (2) is on its way: the distro
contains only ~500 packages currently.  It is self-contained, in that it
doesn’t depend on external tools or binaries to build its packages [1].
However, it is not bootable yet, so it can only be used atop a running
GNU/Linux system.  (There’s on-going work to reach the point where we
can boot directly into it.)

The distro obviously contains only free software, and it follows the FSF
free system distribution guidelines [2]; it is not based on any existing
distribution.  Package contributors perform a license and copyright
check on the packages they add.  Package meta-data records the license
of each package [3]; we do not keep track of copyright notices on a
per-file basis like Debian’s copyright files do.


So that’s it.  We are interested in feedback on freedom-related issues,
so please let us know what you think, as ask us any questions you may
have, preferably via address@hidden

Thanks,
Ludo’.

[0] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Bootstrapping
[2] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Packaging-Guidelines
[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Defining-Packages

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