blog/archives/2011/02zack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/archives/2011/02/zack's home pageikiwiki2013-02-15T18:25:42ZSqueeze, Debian, and the FSFhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/02/squeeze_debian_and_the_FSF/2011-03-13T22:17:22Z2011-02-21T12:31:09Z
<p>Short version: <q><em>Dear <a href="http://www.fsf.org">FSF</a>,
thanks for <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/news/debian-squeeze-makes-key-progress-toward-being-a-fully-free-distribution">
your appreciation</a> of Debian Squeeze achievements in getting rid
of non-free firmware blobs. We still disagree on the overall
freeness assessment of Debian, but I'm positive that steps like
this one can further future collaboration, in the interest of both
projects</em></q>.</p>
<p>Long version follows.</p>
<hr />
<p>Historically, the relationships among Debian and the FSF have
gone through mixed fortune (and that's quite an euphemism). On the
one hand, Debian is committed to <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract">100% Free Software</a>, is
an open project explicitly inspired by <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/intro/about">"the spirit of GNU"</a>, has
been sponsored by FSF in its infancy, and properly calls itself
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/intro/cooperation.html">"GNU/Linux"</a> (or
even "GNU/kFreeBSD"). On the other hand, Debian is the project who
considers the GNU FDL license to be only <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2006/20060316">conditionally free</a>
and which is not considered to be an entirely Free system <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html">according to
FSF</a>.<br />
So much for the history corner.</p>
<p>As a long time member of the Debian Project, as well as an
FSF(E) fellow, I've always felt a bit sad about this state of
affairs. Not because the two projects should have aligned goals;
they clearly focus on different aspects of the quest for a Free
(Software) world. Not even because they should agree on how to
build a Free distribution: history has shown that FSF
<em>technical</em> positions do not always get along with Debian's
more "pragmatic" style, as embodied by point 5 of the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract">Social Contract</a>.
Rather, my sadness is rooted in the belief that not getting along
have encouraged duplication of efforts which could have been easily
avoided (e.g. multiple distributions concurrently freeing up
kernels).</p>
<p>Furthermore, I'm more and more convinced that Debian nowadays
enjoys a rather privileged position among Free Software vendors.
Indeed, even though GNU/Linux distributions have reached a
popularity we didn't dare to imagine 15 years ago or so, most
distributions are under the direct or indirect control of
commercial vendors. Those commercial vendors play a very important
role in the promotion of Free Software. For instance, they are
structured in ways that enable them to seal OEM deals with hardware
manufacturers to sell computers with GNU/Linux pre-installed.
Commercial vendors, by their own nature, are also in general better
at marketing than non-commercial vendors. On the flip side however,
commercial vendors are not yet relevant enough to drive proprietary
drivers out of the market and, as a consequence, cannot yet afford
not to support hardware which need such proprietary bits to work.
Among mainstream GNU/Linux distributions<small>[1]</small> Debian
is one of the very few vendors—if not the only one—that is both
<a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/who_the_bloody_hell_cares_about_Debian/">very
relevant</a> and, thanks to its independence, can afford taking
Free Software's side: no commercial urgency can force Debian to
negotiate on that. That is quite an asset to be used in the
promotion of Free Software, especially to a public that is
interested in and willing to understand what Free Software really
is about. Such an "aware" public is on the rise as of lately,
together with the general awareness increase of risks entailed by
living a digital life, when that life is not under our control
(think, as an example, at how often the "Facebook privacy debate"
has hit mainstream medias in the last year). The "aware" public is
the natural target of <em>both</em> Debian and the FSF. Dividing it
would not serve well the cause of Free Software.</p>
<p>With all that in mind, last August I took the chance of being on
the "right" side of the Atlantic Ocean for <a href=
"http://debconf10.debconf.org">DebConf10</a>, to discuss possible
venues of collaboration among Debian and the FSF. I sat down and
discussed at length with <a href="http://wjsullivan.net/">John
Sullivan</a>, who I happen to know for his Debian involvement, in
his capacities of FSF representative and <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/about/leadership.html#johns">operations
manager</a>. We discussed various topics, with the intention of
bringing them up to the respective communities<small>[2]</small>.
Then, inevitably, we ended up talking about the overall freeness of
Debian and his <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian">exclusion</a>
from FSF listing of Free systems. (FSF is of course entitled to
such judgements, pretty much as Debian is entitled to its own
judgements on FSF licenses. Nevertheless those judgements
contribute to dividing our public and might lead to wasteful
duplication of efforts, where Free Software could better be served
by collaboration.) The main ground for exclusion from that list
used to be the compromises Debian has made in <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007">the</a> <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2008/vote_003">past</a> about non-free
firmware blobs. But, as I pointed out back in August, <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/squeeze_your_non-free_firmware_away/">those
compromises would have been gone</a> starting with Squeeze, making
that argument moot.</p>
<p>Today—6 months later—I'm delighted to cheer at FSF's decision to
<a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/news/debian-squeeze-makes-key-progress-toward-being-a-fully-free-distribution">
publicly recognize</a> the achievements Debian has delivered with
Squeeze.<br />
Thanks! It's a nice gesture that I've very much appreciated. I'm
confident steps like this one will help future collaboration if, on
both sides, we will be able to spot actual venues for
collaboration.</p>
<p>Needlessly to say, I still disagree with the overall FSF
assessment of Debian <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian">non-freeness</a>.
Apparently, it still stands on the basis that <q><em>Debian also
provides a repository of nonfree software […] [which] is “not part
of the Debian system.” […] but users would be hard-pressed to make
a distinction</em></q> and that <q><em>people can readily learn
about software available through it by browsing Debian's online
package database</em></q>. I respect the principle of non
advertising non-free software and I even agree that it is a good
principle. But unfortunately it's also a very blurry principle on
which, in my opinion, Debian actually scores very well. No non-free
software is offered to users by Debian; it's just for users that
really <em>want</em> to have non-free software (or <em>need</em>
to, in order to run a Free OS on their computers), that Debian
tries to stay out of their way. For the "aware" public discussed
above, I think it's much better to draw the line where software
freedom ends and use that line to explain what does crossing it
entails, than locking them up pretending non-free software do not
exist. But fair enough: for the time being, I guess, we will need
to agree to disagree on this one.</p>
<p>Getting a little bit closer in the occasion of the Squeeze
release is still an important step forward. It's up to each of us
now to seek out initiatives which attract the interest of both
projects and that can benefit from synergies.</p>
<hr />
<p><small>[1] Sorry, I've no decent definition of "<em>mainstream
distribution</em>" to offer, besides folklore and well-established
distribution <a href="http://distrowatch.com/">review</a> <a href=
"http://lwn.net/Distributions/#lead">sites</a>. (Heck, I don't even
have a decent definition of "well-established distribution review
site" to offer!).</small><br />
<small>[2] which hasn't happened yet, due to the proverbial amount
of available spare time.</small><br /></p>
in the news - Debian and the FreedomBoxhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/02/in_the_news_-_Debian_and_the_FreedomBox/2011-02-17T21:05:25Z2011-02-16T17:52:40Z
<p>Fellow geeks who have attended <a href=
"http://www.fosdem.org">FOSDEM</a> this year probably remember Eben
Moglen's <a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/fosdemtalks#p/u/16/-BSLBvwyUEs">announcement</a>
about the creation of a foundation to support the development of
<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">FreedomBox</a>-es.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">FreedomBox
foundation</a> and its goals have been featured in a <a href=
"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/nyregion/16about.html">New York
Times article</a> appeared yesterday, together with a nice Debian
mention which points to our wiki. Debian is also prominently
present on the (<a href=
"http://packages.debian.org/sid/ikiwiki">ikiwiki</a>-powered)
website of the foundation.</p>
<p>Yet another reason why I'm proud of being part of <a href=
"http://www.debian.org">Debian</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><small>(thanks to Faidon for the heads up)</small></p>
<hr />
<ul>
<li><strong>update</strong>: <a href=
"http://freedomboxfoundation.org/news/2011-02-17-inthepress/">this
blog post</a> by the FreedomBox foundation contains more "in the
press" pointers (to both the foundation and Debian), including an
article in the <a href=
"http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/02/16/freedom-box-needs-a-good-user-interface/">
Wall Street Journal</a></li>
<li><strong>update</strong>: the article on NYT website is indeed
intermittently payware/accessible. For future reference, I've made
available an HTML-only <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/02/in_the_news_-_Debian_and_the_FreedomBox/Eben_Moglen_Is_Reshaping_Internet_With_a_Freedom_Box_-_NYTimes.com.html">
static version of the article</a> here (may NYT forgive me).</li>
</ul>
ZOMG a Debian releasehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/02/ZOMG_a_Debian_release/2013-02-15T18:25:42Z2011-02-08T09:44:58Z
<h1>mythbustering a Debian release</h1>
<p>This is no news anymore, but in case you don't know yet:
<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110205a"><strong>Debian
6.0 "Squeeze" has been released</strong></a> the past week-end. If
you haven't yet downloaded Squeeze, stop reading this blog post
right here and jump to:</p>
<div class="center"><big><a href=
"http://deb.li/squeeze">http://deb.li/squeeze</a></big></div>
<p>to choose your ISO; or check the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/">release notes</a> for
upgrade instructions from Debian 5.0 "Lenny".</p>
<p>Done?<br />
Cool!<br /></p>
<p>I hope you are now enjoying Squeeze as much as I've enjoyed
being part of its development cycle which:</p>
<ul>
<li>has lasted 24 months from the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/">Lenny release</a></li>
<li>has been worked on by a <strong>volunteer Project</strong> of
about 900 members and thousands of other volunteer
contributors</li>
<li>has <a href=
"http://blog.schmehl.info/2011/01/19#bugs-closed-for-squeeze">closed
150'000 bugs</a></li>
<li>has increased user freedom by delivering a <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/squeeze_your_non-free_firmware_away/"><strong>
Free Linux kernel</strong></a></li>
<li>has added 2 <strong>non-Linux ports</strong> (<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">kfreefbsd 32/64
bits</a>) to the already large family of <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/">Debian ports</a></li>
<li>will continue the tradition of <strong>archive-wide long term
security support</strong> (lasting about 3-3.5 years given current
<a href=
"http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/02/06/debian-6-0-is-out-wheezy-kicks-off/">
Debian release cadence</a>)</li>
<li>maintains, stubbornly, the tradition of a rock-solid
<strong>Debian-quality</strong> system, made of packages which have
been "tortured" by testing utils like <a href=
"http://piuparts.debian.org/">piuparts</a>, <a href=
"http://edos.debian.net/">edos-debcheck</a>, and frequent archive
rebuilds <small>(after all, what is Free Software for if you cannot
recompile your programs?)</small></li>
<li>has added 10'000 new (binary) packages</li>
<li>has provided official <a href=
"http://backports.debian.org">backport service</a></li>
<li>... etc, you got the idea <img src=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /></li>
</ul>
<p>I'm still shaked by the events, given the release happened in a
sort of split context: the teams working on the final phases of the
release (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ReleaseTeam">release
team</a>, <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FTPMaster">ftp-masters</a>, <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Webmaster">webmasters</a>, <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianCd">cd</a>, <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DSA">DSA</a>, etc.) were "at home"
hacking frantically on it, while many EU-based Debian people
(including yours truly) were at <a href=
"http://www.fosdem.org/2011/">FOSDEM</a> representing Debian to the
community with booth, talks, and answering the recurrent question
«so, have you released yet?».</p>
<p>At FOSDEM, I've been personally submerged by congratulation
messages that are not really for me, but rather for the Debian
community at large. So: <strong>congratulations folks</strong>!
People out there—be them Debian users, users of some derivative, or
Free Software enthusiasts in general—seem to really love what we
have achieved with Squeeze!</p>
<p>The people that need to be thanked for this result are way too
many, so I won't try to name names. Nonetheless, I've a few
<strong>personal kudos</strong> to deliver to:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The <strong>release team</strong> for the fantastic coordination
and communication job over the past few months. They have also
contributed to <strong>mythbustering #1</strong>: <em>Debian cannot
fix a release date</em> (a bit) <em>in advance</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>All the people who have worked on <strong>fixing RC
bugs</strong> by sending patches, reviewing and testing them,
preparing <strong>NMUs</strong>, etc. I'll never give up my belief
that <a href="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/hacking/debian/rcbw/">releasing is a
shared responsibility</a> and that we cannot scale without
realizing that and changing our culture accordingly. All this
people have contributed to move towards <strong>mythbustering
#2</strong>: <em>NMUs are bad</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Publicity"><strong>publicity
team</strong></a> which—with release live blogging via <a href=
"http://identi.ca/debian">@debian</a>, blog posts, and press
releases—have contributed to <strong>mythbustering #3</strong>:
<em>Debian isn't able to communicate about the "cool" stuff they
are doing</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <strong>webmaster team</strong> which has done an <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110205b">incredible job</a> at
<strong>mythbustering #4</strong>: <em>Debian <a href=
"http://www.debian.org">web presence</a> sucks</em>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm overwhelmed by happiness about all that and I'll cherish it
forever as a <em>souvenir</em> of what a community of volunteers,
driven by <a href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract">common
ideals</a>, can achieve.</p>
<p>Now let's <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/ReleasePartySqueeze">party</a> and then
roll up our sleeves for Wheezy, which is already <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/02/msg00003.html">
open for development</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>PS</strong> I've <a href=
"http://git.upsilon.cc/?p=talks/20110206-fosdem.git;a=tree;h=refs/heads/pdf;hb=pdf">
talked</a> again at FOSDEM about the relevance of Debian in the
Free Software ecosystem. I've the impression the message is getting
through: check out the very nice article <a href=
"http://www.networkworld.com/community/why-debian-matters-more-than-ever">
<em>Why Debian matters more than ever</em></a> by Zonker.</p>