So, an operating system can born "free" (free as in speech, in the GNU sense)
and then, become "non-free" just because some users decided to create a way
to ease installations of software that "just can't be shipped with the system"?
You've formulated a very broad description, which applies to the act
of putting a non-free program in the ports system, and equally to many
other acts whose nature is different. For instance, the program might
or might not be free; the easier way might or might not be included in
OpenBSD. I might say the act was bad, or I might say it was good,
depending on the details not specified.
If "some users" write a way to "ease installation" of some non-free
program, and distribution D doesn't include this way in its
distribution or publicize it, then those users have done something bad
but distribution D is not responsible for what they did.
However, if distribution D includes this "easier way to install" in
its ports system, by doing so distribution D endorses it and takes on
the ethical responsibility for it.
I say "distribution D" because this is the same for any distribution,
whether it's a distribution of the BSD system, or a distribution the
GNU/Linux system, or whatever.
| Linus Torvalds | Linux 2.6.27-rc8 |
| Greg KH | [patch 00/71] 2.6.26-stable review |
| Dmitry Torokhov | 2.6.27-rc8+ - first impressions |
| jimmy bahuleyan | Re: Hibernation considerations |
git: | |
| Petr Baudis | [FYI][PATCH] Customizing the WinGit installer |
| Jan Hudec | Re: [PATCH] Move all dashed form git commands to libexecdir |
| Jay Soffian | Re: [PATCH] gitweb: Support caching projects list |
| Mark Levedahl | Allowing override of the default "origin" nickname |
| Richard Stallman | Real men don't attack straw men |
| Leon Dippenaar | New tcp stack attack |
| Luca Dell'Oca | Authenticate squid in Active Directory |
| Todd Pytel | IDE or SCSI virtual disks for VMWare image? |
| Jarek Poplawski | Re: [PATCH] pkt_sched: Destroy gen estimators under rtnl_lock(). |
| Matthew Dharm | Re: [RFC] Patch to option HSO driver to the kernel |
| Ingo Molnar | Re: [bug] stuck localhost TCP connections, v2.6.26-rc3+ |
| David Miller | Re: [GIT PULL] [IPV6] COMPAT: Fix SSM applications on 64bit kernels. |
