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Re: Debian Libre - blend/pureblend/derivative?



Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> writes:

>> 1) Debian Libre as a Debian Pure Blend.  As far as I can tell, this
>> isn't that far away, the images serves a purpose for a special group of
>> target users.  Could this be considered a Debian Pure Blend already?
>> What is missing to become officially blessed?
>
> A system design consisting purely Debian bits is a "Debian Pure Blend".
> No need for any further blessing - go ahead and print stickers for it!

Is there a requirement that the build scripts to produce the images also
be part of Debian?  And a requirement that those scripts doesn't use or
download anything that is not part of Debian?  The current build scripts
are tiny (<200 lines of shell commands), but it is not part of Debian.

I think one could argue that since the scripts are not part of Debian,
Debian Libre would not "consist purely of Debian bits", and could thus
not be a Debian Pure Blend.  One could also think that such an argument
is just silly, but more guidance what the policy means would be nice.

Would it be useful to address this concern by wrapping up the build
script and add that to Debian properly?  For example a
'debian-libre-live-build' package.  It would be some work to do that and
the motivation would only be policy-compliance, not any technical goal.

How do other Blends work, do they package their build scripts?

>> 2) Adding more libre-oriented packages, such as GNU Linux-Libre:
>> https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/
>> 
>>   2a) Is it "permitted" for a Debian Pure Blends to configure additional
>>   non-debian.org archives to fetch packages from?  Is that what makes it
>>   a "non-Pure" Blend?
>> 
>>   2b) Could linux-libre be added to Debian properly?  I suppose some
>>   work to reduce duplication of kernel code would be required.  Has
>>   including linux-libre been discussed before, and was there any
>>   conclusive outcome of that?
>
> A system including non-Debian bits is not a Debian Pure Blend.
> Feel free to call is a Debian Blend (without the "pure" designation).
>
> I do understand that your aim is "more pure than Debian", but the
> terminology is about Debian-ness, not about other interpretations of
> purity.
>
> Good luck with your project - I think it sounds like a worthy project,
> regardless if you choose an approach where "Debian Pure Blend" is
> inappropriate do describe it.

Thank you -- I think maybe the solution isn't to decide on one thing to
provide, but realize that the effort may offer multiple things:

Debian Libre Pure Blend - current live images, using only Debian bits
(modulo my question above).

Debian Libre Blend - live images that also configure additional
archives, to add say linux-libre or some other package that Debian
rejects.

Debian Libre Derivative - a derivative that copy Debian removing the
non-free parts.  I guess this shouldn't have "Debian" in the name?

/Simon

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