openSUSE and the distribution of proprietary software
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Every Linux distributor must find its own peace when it comes to the issue of proprietary software. Some distributors will avoid anything non-free to the point of tearing firmware out of the kernel. Others, like Fedora or Debian, will not include any non-free code. Distributors like Ubuntu are rather more willing to facilitate the use of non-free software, but even they are, perhaps, not 100% comfortable with it. And distributions like Xandros positively embrace proprietary code.
OpenSUSE (like SuSE Linux before it) has traditionally taken a position which is relatively friendly toward proprietary software. It was only in 2006 that Novell announced its intention to stop shipping non-GPL kernel modules, but it never made any such promises with regard to user space. So a typical openSUSE installation disk includes a number of proprietary goodies, including the Adobe Flash player, a number of fonts, ARCAD, the Acrobat PDF reader, the Opera web browser, RealPlayer, and more.
The presence of all this proprietary code is unwelcome to some users, of course, but it has another interesting effect: it requires that openSUSE be distributed with an end-user license agreement which has some very un-free-software-like terms. Among other things, it reads:
In other words, redistribution of the openSUSE DVD is not permitted. Members of the openSUSE mirror network are, technically, in violation of the EULA, though nobody appears to be in a hurry to call them on that. But the EULA raises eyebrows and makes some users uncomfortable; many people got into free software to avoid dealing with agreements like that.
The need for the EULA, rather than problems with proprietary software in general, is causing developers at Novell to reconsider which packages should go onto an openSUSE DVD. To that end, Novell product manager Michael Löffler has proposed a new scheme whereby the DVD would only contain redistributable software (including proprietary software, such as firmware, which allows redistribution). The openSUSE project would set up a network-based repository from which other proprietary applications could be installed; the installer would then install a couple of packages (the Adobe Flash player and Fluendo's MP3 codec) by default.
The end result for most users would be the same: an openSUSE installation with both free and proprietary software. At least, that would be the case for users with a decent network connection. But those users would also gain a DVD with a much less restrictive EULA allowing the DVD to be redistributed at will. (The current plan is to still have an agreement for trademark control and warranty disclaimer reasons, even though other software distributors have managed to eliminate EULAs for those purposes). At this point, it would also be easy to add an option to simply skip the configuration of the non-free repository for users who want a "clean" installation.
Most responses to this proposal have been positive. The happiness is not universal, though; one user complained:
It is true that one-stop shopping has long been a feature of the SUSE distribution. And a recent survey [PDF] suggests that a significant portion of the openSUSE user base makes use of at least a few of the proprietary tools included there. If the presence of this code is truly a "key point" of openSUSE, then taking it out could risk upsetting users at a time when, by some accounts, the visibility of this distribution is already dropping.
This risk would be mitigated by a couple of factors, though. One is that the need to download those packages over the net is not much of a stopping point for most users. After all, people installing Linux from a CD or DVD have usually resigned themselves to a massive download of package updates after the first boot anyway. Tossing a few more packages into that download - assuming they weren't set to be updated by then anyway - is not going to change the experience in any significant way.
But the other relevant point is that the need for much of this proprietary code is decreasing. Java used to be a big part of the openSUSE proprietary software load, but Java is now free. Your editor cannot remember when he last encountered a PDF file which could not be managed by at least one free viewer - though, evidently, such files do still exist. Perhaps the biggest remaining problem is Flash; progress is being made there, but Flash is most certainly not a solved problem. Beyond that, though, there are few situations indeed where a proprietary application is really needed for ordinary tasks.
The openSUSE distribution is not distancing itself from proprietary
software at this time; it is just reorganizing its management of that
software to address one of the problems it brings. But it is still hard to
avoid the temptation to read between lines and look forward to a day when
openSUSE, too, distributes only free software - not as a result of any sort
of push for purity, but just because its users no longer have any need for
anything else.
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How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 14:57 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
Debian does distribute proprietary software, but it tells you what it's doing.
On Debian, I can run "vrms" to see what proprietary stuff if any I have installed, then remove it with the package manager and edit /etc/apt/sources.list and remove the "non-free" repository. From then on, the system policy prevents the package manager from installing anything with a questionable license.
It's probably not a big deal for a home machine, but if you're going to deploy it for work, or build an embedded system or "virtual appliance" based on it, the Debian way offers peace of mind. No more "oops, I didn't know Example.com ImprisonDmitryWare was on there!"
The big question needs to be: is there a configuration change that you can make that will prevent the system from installing proprietary software behind your back?
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 15:02 UTC (Mon) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link]
It's more like:
"_Guess_ you need a magic passphrase, and the door will open".
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 15:41 UTC (Mon) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 30, 2008 14:19 UTC (Tue) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
How Debian handles it
Posted Oct 9, 2008 21:37 UTC (Thu) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link]
[...] it's not mentioned in any obviously documented place as far as I can tell!A number of packages recommend or suggest their documentation (which is good), and then I find that apt-get doesn't know about this package, so I google for, e.g. "debian package make-doc" and there it says "[non-free]" in big letters. And if I actually want to have documentation for pretty important packages, I have to put "non-free" in my sources.list, even if I don't want any software that the real RMS considers non-free. And I am worried that some proprietary software might slip in through this open door. I would appreciate it if Debian did not just throw anything thats not DFSG-compliant into one common "non-free" section. At least now I can check with vrms:
Non-free packages installed on smaug emacs21-common-non-dfsg GNU Emacs shared, architecture independent, non-DFSG i gawk-doc Documentation for GNU awk gcc-4.1-doc documentation for the GNU compilers (gcc, gobjc, g++) gcc-doc-base several GNU manual pages glibc-doc-reference GNU C Library: Documentation make-doc Documentation for the GNU version of the "make" utilit 6 non-free packages, 0.6% of 1033 installed packages.Only GNU stuff. Good.
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 17:16 UTC (Mon) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 18:27 UTC (Mon) by perlwolf (guest, #46060) [Link]
I presume that VRMS stands for "Virtual RMS" and it lectures you on just how you are failing to support free software appropriately. :-)
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 29, 2008 20:54 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
"VRMS"
Posted Oct 1, 2008 10:58 UTC (Wed) by nettings (subscriber, #429) [Link]
if you're a non-debian user like me, here's some background: http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2005-12/m...
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 30, 2008 10:21 UTC (Tue) by michl (guest, #35061) [Link]
Yes, the proprietary software would just be offered by default. The installation itself will need an ok, uncheck or similar.
How Debian handles it
Posted Sep 30, 2008 21:50 UTC (Tue) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203) [Link]
> I have installed...
That tool isn't good enough. Here is what vrms says about one of my machines:
jester:~# vrms
No non-free packages installed on jester! rms would be proud.
One little problem... jester is a fully functional MythTV front and backend. It can rip and play DVDs, play video and music in a multitude of patented formats, etc. RMS would not be proud of that machine.
How Debian handles it
Posted Oct 1, 2008 17:54 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-gu...
How Debian handles it
Posted Oct 2, 2008 9:03 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
openSUSE and the distribution of proprietary software
Posted Sep 29, 2008 15:09 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]
Call me a cynic, but I think OpenSUSE is taking freedom further.
openSUSE and the distribution of proprietary software
Posted Sep 30, 2008 1:37 UTC (Tue) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXy1bRSOJP4&feature=Pl...
being offline problems
Posted Sep 30, 2008 9:23 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]
After all, people installing Linux from a CD or DVD have usually resigned themselves to a massive download of package updates after the first boot anyway.Unfortunately, yes. But there still are situations -even in the industrial west- where you want install Linux, or upgrade it "in the woods" with no practical broadband. I recently had one such experience, and found that even making an off-line collection of packages for an upgrade is painful. (I never imagined that a DVD-R would get too small for just the packages needing upgrade!). Eventually much of the upgrade got done by trickling it over GPRS, fortunately there was no great hurry and we had an unlimited data plan.
PDF not readable with free software
Posted Sep 30, 2008 9:32 UTC (Tue) by dps (guest, #5725) [Link]
I have also experienced one PDF document which xpdf displayed fine but printed a set of black boxes. Using adobe's software worked without any problems. Explanations are welcome on the back of a post card.
Electronic journal articles, which are almost always in PDF format, are particularly prone to problems. I suspect some of them are not valid PDF but acrobat reader somehow copes with the problems, possibly by ignoring the incorrect data.
(Given the choice I prefer a 64 bit version of xpdf to acroread, partly because the former is a lot faster and shares more memory with other programs.)
PDF not readable with free software
Posted Oct 2, 2008 5:38 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
OT: PDF not readable with free software
Posted Oct 2, 2008 10:27 UTC (Thu) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
PDF not readable with free software
Posted Oct 2, 2008 17:37 UTC (Thu) by pcdavid (guest, #4295) [Link]
PDF not readable with free software
Posted Oct 16, 2008 15:57 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]
Duncan
OSS vs. Non-OSS repos
Posted Sep 30, 2008 11:37 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
online repo for non-free packages, as said repository has been there for
some years now:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/1x.y/repo/non-oss compared
to
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/1x.y/repo/oss where all the
open source goodness is.
The only place where free and unfree software are mixed is the
installation DVD. So an easy way to have a guaranteed free-software-only
system is to just use the oss online repo and remove everything that's not
there.
Surely one could *ask*
Posted Sep 30, 2008 16:47 UTC (Tue) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]
and shows you two lists: Non-EULA and EULA, and
allows you to select either, both or some of each.
It can then show you the EULA if required, and if
not, not.
Teapot, tempest, for the use of, quantity one.
--dave
firmware and avoiding non-free software
Posted Oct 2, 2008 10:34 UTC (Thu) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link]
firmware and avoiding non-free software
Posted Oct 5, 2008 16:20 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link]
Who would sue whom about firmware inside the kernel? Would the kernel hackers sue themselves? Or perhaps the people who provided said firmware for use with their hardware sue Red Hat for distributing it with Linux? I can't imagine the firmware got included in the kernel without the owner's knowledge and consent...
firmware and avoiding non-free software
Posted Oct 6, 2008 2:33 UTC (Mon) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link]
When talking about distributors choosing not to distribute proprietary firmware blobs as part of the Linux binary image, the suing that they want to avoid is where they the distributors (and their mirror providers) are sued by one of the copyright holders of some GPLv2-licensed piece of code in Linux.
As for why a Linux copyright owner would sue a distributor, maybe some separate disagreement arises and the copyright owner uses the threat of suing as a bargaining chip, or maybe the copyright owner is a company (see SCO).
As for the copyright owners of the firmware itself, they have grounds to sue if the firmware blob weren't licensed for distribution at all, or if the Linux binary image that contains that firmware blob is considered a derivative work of the firmware blob (which seems less likely than the above case), and if the firmware's license hasn't granted permission to distribute derivative works of the firmware. I haven't heard of distributors being concerned about this case.
Going back to the question of to what extent tearing firmware out of the kernel [Linux] is evidence of a desire to avoid anything non-free, I believe that in some cases the distributor still distributes the firmware blob, but as a separate file loaded into the device from userspace. (Moving the firmware blob out of the Linux binary image in this way makes it clearer that this is an instance of mere aggregation of another work [viz. the firmware] not based on [Linux] with [Linux] ... on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, and much harder for the would-be plaintiff to argue that these separate files form a single work that is a derivative work of content of either file.) If a distributor is still distributing the firmware, then clearly they are not trying to avoid anything non-free, but are merely trying to avoid copyright lawsuits.