Re: [GNU-linux-libre] review PureOS ISO

[Zlatan Todoric]

Hello,


On 11/09/2016 08:17 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Hello Zlatan,
>
> I am following this list, as a user of GNU, and somebody who compiles
> those to me needed GNU packages from sources, and I endorse all free
> and FSF endorsed GNU distributions.
>
> Sadly I am in such a position that cannot easily order a computer
> without proprietary BIOS. At least I don't use any proprietary
> firmware, and the one for this ath9k chips, I have compiled myself, it
> was hours of work to get less than 100 kb firmware file.
>
> I see that on your website, you are selling notebooks. I don't know
> nothing about them, and if you are calling them Librem, I just assume
> they are without proprietary BIOS.

Please stop right now watering down this discussion about our hardware 
as focus here is not hardware that RYF but a Free software distribution 
- and only that.

> I have reviewed this FAQ here:
> https://puri.sm/faq/
>
> and I did not find anything in regards to BIOS. I have found on other
> pages on your site, that you are basically still using blobs, like it
> says here: https://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status-nov2014/ and I
> cannot know what is updated information.

Again, nothing to do with Free software distribution.

> The impression is that you are offering a notebook products, and that
> you are trying your best to reach into the target group of free
> software supports, and you try your best to liberate the notebook from
> proprietary software, in order to reach to the mentioned group of
> people.
>
> The focus is not on free software. The focus is on a notebook, that is
> to reach the free software users and supporters.

The focus here is only on Free software OS. You can install Trisquel on 
our hardware and it will work out of the box, and it doesn't render it 
as nonfree distro because of the hardware.

> Only, why did not you come up in the first place with a notebook
> without blobs, and non-free firmwares? From beginning?

This has nothing with intended discussion.

> What can you do to actually offer libre notebooks?
>
> Do you see my point? On one side, you liberate the operating system,
> like PureOS, and on the other side, you are yourself selling non-free
> notebooks.

No, I don't see your points relevant for this discussion, you're 
discussing as we applied at the same time for RYF hardware which we didn't.

> You are promoting free software distribution on the same domain where
> you are selling non-free software to people.

We are not selling non-free software so stop the FUD.

> My observations:
>
> 1) PureOS domain is not pure from proprietary software, in fact, it is
> promoting sales of notebooks that still contain proprietary software

AFAIK (someone correct me please) this is not relevant for this discussion.

> 2) Notebooks were chosen from beginning to have the proprietary blobs,
> firmware, whatever, and you have offered them for sale before that has
> been handled.

Not relevant for this discussion.

> 3) While you are promoting PureOS as free distribution, you have a
> business that pushes proprietary software into hands of the users, I
> refe to blobs and firmware, I don't know if anything changed, you can
> let me know.

Our business is not to push proprietary software, just choose different 
path to achieve something we all want. Anyway, business plan of the 
company is not relevant for this discussion - only relevant bit is that 
Purism is dedicated to provide entirely Free OS for its hardware. I 
don't see why should we be bashed about this, instead of praised - not 
sure how many companies are trying to deliver freedom for their users. I 
don't want to water this discussion more so - not relevant for this 
discussion.

> 4) I have not reviewed where other free distributions host their
> software, however, I don't have Github account (not any more) and will
> not be able to file bugs against it.

If you read what I wrote, you have a way to register to our Free 
software powered infrastructure where you can submit bugs.

> 5) I have reviewed als your repo location and its source code on:
> http://repo.puri.sm/pureos/ and I can see that ChangeLog is of zero
> bytes, which tells me there were no changes ever, or somebody is
> simply placing a file for its own sake.

Please submit bugs. There certainly are bugs and we want to work on them 
and improve the OS.

> 6) After the review of the file Packages.xz I see that you are using
> something like Debian packaging? I don't say anything against that, I
> am just looking into the efforts to liberate the software from
> anything proprietary. Are you putting those efforts? Or are you just
> repackaging some other distribution?

We are Debian based as some other endorsed distributions, nothing wrong 
with that - on contrary awesome choice to be based on Debian main 
archive. Report bugs if you find something wrong with it.

> 7) After the review of "Sources" of PureOS, I could find on this link:
> http://repo.puri.sm/pureos/dists/green/main/source/ the file name
> Sources.xz for which I was thinking, what it is? It was uncommon to
> me, to find a file without "tar", so I have reviewed the file. Don't
> take me wrong, I like sources in general, that is why I am compiling
> all packages from sources. I am addict to sources. And on your
> website, I could just find one file relating to sources.
>
> The file does not give sources of the PureOS, it just points out to
> sources of Debian packages.
>
> There are few packages that are showing some "pureos" work being done,
> those relate to package management, and customization of the Gnome
> system.

Again report bugs on our bug tracker. Also, you don't expect us to patch 
every single Debian package just for the sake of making difference. 
While we will in future diverge in choices of our defaults compared to 
Debian, we want to have minimal deltas to Debian - and that is technical 
choice which I find reasonable from us.

> I have also reviewed your purism Github account,
> https://github.com/purism and on the package pureos-meta I see there
> is 1 contributor.
>
> All that is good. I just see pure efforts for free software
> distribution. I see much of efforts for customization of the Debian
> GNU/Linux to comply to your notebook sales.

Not relevant to this discussion.

> In fact, I guess, you would be better of in selling notebooks, if you
> would say "Debian - ready" and simply letting people use any
> distribution they want, without PureOS pre-installed. I am not sure if
> you are gaining anything in notebook sales like this. Maybe a simple
> customized PureOS wallpaper and menu, on the pure Debian GNU/Linux
> installation would do more for you in terms of sales.

Our business plan around our hardware and our offering has nothing to do 
with PureOS endorsement.

> 8) The website for PureOS is not separate from a notebook sales
> website. In fact sales are in the first focus on that domain. I don't
> say you should not sell notebooks, I say that your focus is on sales
> and much less focus on truly purely making a free software
> distribution.

You're repeating yourself and I don't see how this is relevant to 
PureOS. As I said, would Trisquel become nonfree if we choose to sell it 
with our hardware?

> You asked for comments, you got it.
>
> I am not member of FSF, even I made few small contributions. I am just
> somebody out there, sitting in the town of Geita, Tanzania.
>
> Jean Louis
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 01:43:59AM +0100, Zlatan Todoric wrote:
> > Hi all (again),
> >
> > we are restarting the process of getting PureOS as FSF endorsed OS. We
> > built new infrastructure and released alpha 2 image publicly so we want
> > to march together on this road with you and see the final release of
> > PureOS 3.0 as FSF endorsement of PureOS.
> >
> > Image available for download: https://puri.sm/pureos/download/
> >
> > Repo location and it's source code: http://repo.puri.sm/pureos/
> >
> > New infra brings few things that might (should matter) to community:
> >
> > Bug tracker: https://tracker.puri.sm/maniphest/
> >
> > Wiki (we could use interested parties here :) ): https://tracker.puri.sm/w/
> >
> > Code hosting: although it is mostly here https://github.com/purism and
> > on other parts of github, we plan to move most (probably all) or mirror
> > at least to https://tracker.puri.sm/diffusion/
> >
> >
> > Compared to last time - I appreciate all suggestions and hopefully you
> > can use our bugtracker for submitting bugs (or even code/pull requests)
> > and hopefully we can avoid bashing and bad language. We really want to
> > do this properly and be welcomed into GNU family.
> >
> >
> > Thanks all and let the work begin,
> >
> >
> > Z