dear Jonathan,

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

>    Are you participating in the development of devuan, or just
>    providing infrastructure?

I'm also one of the VUAs, so yes I am participating to the development
and planning to participate more in future. But please consider I'm not
the leader of this project, which is mostly lead by a collective.

Dyne.org is not providing all the infrastructure, just some.

>    If you are participating, what is your position on providing
>    hooks/documentation to install non-free firmware/blobs/etc.?

I advise the VUAs to use linux-libre and aim to a 100% free
distribution, submitting it to the review of the same FSF team that
helps us to keep dyne:bolic 100% free.

>    I remember using the Dynebolic v2 release for some audio-related projects
>    and being blown away by how snappy and usable it was on older machines.

thanks! the merit indeed was partly the decision to keep out the bloat
of GNOME and in particulare GStreamer and Pulseaudio for a multimedia
infrastructure, in favour of JackD and other programs that are way more
useful for professionals. Also because I believe GNU/Linux distributions
are mostly used by professionals, and not casual desktop users.
Also we had a wonderful kernel patchset which unfortunately is not
anymore there, the real-time scheduler by Con Kolivas.
At the bottom of all that, there is a lot of artisanal love into it :^)
and attention to details.

>      I don't remember reading any documentation there describing how
>    to re-blob the distro.

indeed d:b is 100% free and recommended by GNU and FSF.

I just wish I could have a better website and take off all the ads,
which for a period of unemployement in the last years helped at least to
keep the website online.

>    I'm curious about your position on this, especially given that the
>    Snowden revelations put a practical urgency on what many no doubt
>    formerly mocked as free software zealotry.  (Though at least we
>    seem to have moved up a layer in popular awareness from "that's
>    pointless" to "that's insufficient".)

Indeed many of us had integrity in mind, as an ethical position
regarding operating systems used in both public and private sector,
which may be recontextualized today for the large public inside the
Snowden narrative. Yet I dislike the militarized underpinning logic of
that narrative, often leading to more paranoia. I make and use 100%
free/libre software because I believe that consciousness and awareness
of users is very important, beyond the single narrative of the present
decade.

In Devuan I cannot impose my vision on these matters, but I will be
putting it forward. Among the VUAs we never had an in-deep conversation
on the topic so far, since the present priority to converge on this
project is rather pragmatic and aimed to defend ourselves from the
systemd avalanche; we had just a brief exchange on the possibility to
take a 100% free direction for Devuan. There are well experienced and
talented "VUAs" involved in this project and some of these professionals
have been dissenting on some practical aspects connected to de-blob as
you call it (I prefer to call it 100% free/libre).

Whenever we will have a deeper conversation on that, leading to a
consensual decision presumably, I will respect and contemplate also
their positions, because this is not my project, it is our project. I
cannot, nor I want to, impose my own visions on top of others. I think
this is also an attitude found in systemd that we are fighting against.

I believe there is an ethical point also in refusing to take evangelist
postures, recognize other people's reasons and in connecting different
visions in a project, keeping it as a evolving collective process. For
this reason, whatever will be the ultimate decision on these regards for
Devuan, I will also not leave the project if it does not go into the
exact direction I want it to go, but will keep advocating my own
opinions among the circle of lead developers (the VUA one being the
originating collective, quickly expanding I see as more people join with
valuable contributions, like for instance dimkr just recently with
loginkitd).

Ultimately the present goal for Devuan is another. If you care about
having an 100% free-libre distribution please stick around and help
argumenting for it with reason and pleasant prose :^)

Thanks for your concern
ciao





--
Jaromil, Dyne.org Free Software Foundry (est. 2000)
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