Re: The Spirit of Free Software, or The Reality

[Bas Wijnen <wijnen@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 06:00:17PM +0200, Simon Richter wrote:
> Am 16.07.2015 um 16:57 schrieb Don Armstrong:
> > How easy would it be to modify the code so that it only gets the
> > favorite icons when the site is actually visited? [Does it already try
> > to update the icons when it visits one of the configured sites?]
> 
> The problem is that the icons are displayed in the search field
> dropdown, which should be fully functional before visiting the first site.

Also, if it is acceptable to auto-download them, I don't see why it wouldn't be
acceptable to ship them.  It's one or the other: we want to protect our users
against this non-free material and don't give it to them, or we don't think it
is non-free (or that it is an acceptable exception, just like license texts)
and we do.  In the former case we don't ship and don't download; in the latter
case, we do ship and therefore still don't download.

> I believe that it is acceptable to ship these icons -- while they aren't
> free to modify, there is no real reason why we would need that.

I agree, and it seems Mike will start shipping them, which is good IMO.

Thanks,
Bas