Making Haiku Free Software

7

[quote=commodorejohn]
it’s a horrible pain in the butt for people who would like to simply install an OS and have it work when their system may very well include proprietary hardware that requires proprietary firmware, which is not necessarily replaceable with more open equivalents[/quote]

No one, certainly not FSF is preventing you from using proprietary code/drivers/firmware. They (FSF) only say that if you do, it’s not ‘Free Software’ which in their terminology means software which gives the recipient right to the source code so that they can modify it at will.

8

Nobody’s preventing it, no. But as drcouzelis says, “One requirement from the FSF is that the official documentation not make any reference to installing non-free software, including drivers.” And Linux distributions (not even strictly abiding by FSF wishes) already commonly require you to handle firmware blobs yourself, from a designated “non-free” repository that you have to manually enable. So no, you’re not prevented from using proprietary software, you’re just expected to keep it in the closet and feel shame and self-loathing for it and wish to God that you could own proper, open hardware.

9

[quote=commodorejohn]
And Linux distributions (not even strictly abiding by FSF wishes) already commonly require you to handle firmware blobs yourself, from a designated “non-free” repository that you have to manually enable.[/quote]
If by ‘handle firmware blobs yourself’ you mean enable a repo. Even less work than going to NVidia or AMD’s homepage and download the latest drivers and installing them manually which is what I did all the time back when I was running Windows as the ‘official’ drivers from Windows update always lagged behind, and so did everyone else I knew who ran Windows.

[quote=commodorejohn]
So no, you’re not prevented from using proprietary software, you’re just expected to keep it in the closet and feel shame and self-loathing for it and wish to God that you could own proper, open hardware.[/quote]
Oh, could you be any more desperate in trying to attack FSF? Seriously?

Them being against proprietary code and advocating open source free software is such a terrible crime against your senses as it fills you with self-loathing and shame. LOL, wtf?

Newsflash, FSF exists to promote free software over proprietary software, you don’t have to agree with them, not even in order to make use of said free software. If your choice to use proprietary drivers fills you with shame and self-loathing due to the policy of FSF then I suggest you go see a shrink.

10

The point is, they have non-free software - essential non-free software - but they require the user to jump through a hoop to get it, because simply acknowledging that it’s a necessary evil and dealing with it wouldn’t suit their ideology. I have nothing at all against free software, but that kind of “put FSF dogma before the needs of the users” philosophy is exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to see in Haiku.

11

As anticipated this is devolving into a flame war. Chill out guys :slight_smile:

I appreciate what the FSF has accomplished and I agree with many of their ideas, but they are also clearly not pragmatic. Their list of “unendorsed” Linux distros is a laundry list of all the most popular distros.

It is very difficult not to use binary blobs for hardware unless one manufacturers the system from the ground up and ensures only openly documented hardware is used in the system. Ideally a “HaikuBox” would be such a thing, but right now we have to deal with the hardware that people have, and that means binary blobs for firmware, primarily wireless cards.

I’m not aware of what components of Haiku have source code which cannot be modified, but as an open source advocate I would certainly be willing to try to fix that.

As for the license, Michael Phipps specifically chose MIT when he started the project so that Haiku could be more commercial friendly. Maybe a GPL expert would argue that the GPL does not hurt commercial software, but I don’t think that is the common perception. Also it is my experience that the use of MIT and similar licenses is very prevalent nowadays and some really healthy communities evolve around it (my best example being the Ruby community.) I think when one looks at the real world people tend to give back on their own volition when dealing with open source software, and they don’t need a draconian license to force them to do so (please don’t try to argue that the GPL is not draconian, it is.)

So while I appreciate the original poster’s motivations here, I think it is safe to say that while Haiku is aimed at common hardware, we will have to use binary blobs.

Lastly I will say I’m happy that Haiku is at least on their “unendorsed” page :wink:

Regards,
Ryan Leavengood, Haiku developer

12

As far as I know, all of Haiku is currently open source software, but it isn’t all free software. So if you are an open source advocate (as opposed to a free software advocate) then there’s nothing to fix. :slight_smile:

For anyone who would like a very brief description of the difference between the two: Open source software is about using the best technical solution. Free software is about believing that software that protects a user’s freedom is more important than anything else.

Because of Richard Stallman’s then recent work on the GPL and the FSF, Linux torvalds decided to use the GPL. It is believed that the success of Linux and the explosion of free software available would not be anywhere near what it is today without the work of the FSF. (See: “Revolution OS”) To further add to what I’m trying to say, here’s a simple point: the work of both Richard Stallman and Steve Jobs are widly loved and widly disliked by large groups of people. Regardless of anyone’s feelings though, it’s hard to deny that both have had a huge impact on the computer industry.

…Since this topic is specifically about free and open source software, I thought this would be a good place to be pedantic. I hope my answers are not antagonistic. This is just a topic I love to talk about. Please forgive me! :smiley:

…Oh, and as for Haiku, I don’t think any change in license is necessary. It’s doing great the way it is. :slight_smile:

13

That’s up to the distros, FSF has no say in that so if you think enabling a repo is a goddamn chore then take it up with the maintainers of your distro of choice.

It may be a ‘necessary evil’ to you, but not to me. I run Linux with Nouveau, all my hardware works right out of the box with Linux, and thanks to the existance of these open source drivers there’s a chance I will have that same experience when running Haiku.

Meanwhile if it weren’t for open source drivers you wouldn’t be able to run Haiku on anything.

It’s not as if Haiku is likely to have official driver support from hardware vendors anytime in foreseeable future, if ever.

14

Well as far as I can tell they have never had any interest in being ‘pragmatic’, nor have they ever presented themselves that way. They exist to promote the idea of free software, no more no less.

[quote=leavengood]
Also it is my experience that the use of MIT and similar licenses is very prevalent nowadays and some really healthy communities evolve around it (my best example being the Ruby community.)[/quote]
Personally I haven’t seen any changes in overall licencing, GPL is mostly used for larger projects/applications which are full/finished solutions, while MIT/BSD style licencing is very often the choice for component/framework style code.

[quote=leavengood]
Maybe a GPL expert would argue that the GPL does not hurt commercial software, but I don’t think that is the common perception.[/quote]
In what context does it hurt commercial software?

I think you and I have very different definitions of ‘draconian’. GPL is basically a tit for tat licence, atleast I’m certain that it’s that mechanism which has made it the most popular open source licence.

As for if it’s needed or not, in a perfect world surely not, but we are not living in a perfect world. That’s why we still suffer under things like proprietary drivers which prevents us from using hardware we bought in whatever OS we choose.

15

No, but they’re one of the chief proponents of that kind of dogmatic approach to the issue.

For me, no. A nuisance, yes, not really a chore. (Particularly now that I’ve given up on Linux.) But I have to wonder how many newbies opt to give it a shot, only to find that not only do they have to manually install drivers for their hardware (an understandable annoyance that other OSes share,) they have to manually install drivers that the OS already has and knew perfectly well were needed, and how often that moment of hassle for ideology’s sake kills their nascent interest then and there. (I think the fact that, as Ryan pointed out, most of the really popular distros are on the FSF’s “unapproved” list is telling.)

And that’s absolutely great for you - but what about everybody else?

[quote]Meanwhile if it weren’t for open source drivers you wouldn’t be able to run Haiku on anything.

It’s not as if Haiku is likely to have official driver support from hardware vendors anytime in foreseeable future, if ever.[/quote]
Did I miss something? When did I badmouth open-source drivers?

16

[quote=commodorejohn]
No, but they’re one of the chief proponents of that kind of dogmatic approach to the issue.[/quote]
And you think they should not be allowed to, because? They want people to use free software, they don’t force people to use free software.

[quote]
But I have to wonder how many newbies opt to give it a shot, only to find that not only do they have to manually install drivers for their hardware (an understandable annoyance that other OSes share,) they have to manually install drivers that the OS already has and knew perfectly well were needed[/quote]
What are these drivers the ‘os’ already has? The Linux kernel has tons of drivers which are identified and ‘installed’ automatically during boot. Out-of-tree drivers (in other words proprietary) needs to be installed through some distro mechanism which afaik always requires user interaction (just like on Windows).

In Linux distributions this usually means enabling a repository which contain proprietary/patented code which the end user must choose to install at their own discretion.

The same is true here on Haiku, it doesn’t even ship freetype2 with lcd-hinting enabled due to fear of patents.

[quote=commodorejohn]
(I think the fact that, as Ryan pointed out, most of the really popular distros are on the FSF’s “unapproved” list is telling.)[/quote]
I pointed out that even earlier in this thread. Which again shows that it’s up to the ‘distros’. FSF does not control what they do.

Wow, I’m the ONLY one who gets by on open source drivers and everybody else needs proprietary drivers. And again, nothing prevents you from using those proprietary drivers, not FSF, not the distros.

[quote]
Did I miss something? When did I badmouth open-source drivers?[/quote]
Your whole drivel insinuates that we can’t live without proprietary drivers, if that was the case then Haiku is dead in the water. Luckily it’s not, again thanks to open source drivers.

17

[quote=Rox][quote=commodorejohn]
No, but they’re one of the chief proponents of that kind of dogmatic approach to the issue.[/quote]
And you think they should not be allowed to, because? They want people to use free software, they don’t force people to use free software.[/quote]
You’re putting a lot of words in my mouth here. Disapproving of a blindly dogmatic approach and the negative effects it has on accesibility for new users does not mean I think they should be censored - it just means I wish they’d give greater consideration to what the side-effects of their advocacy are.

Yes, but that’s a minor annoyance, not a serious lack of functionality. You don’t nead anti-aliased text to have a thoroughly functional operating system, and Haiku even has a monochrome anti-aliasing method available with no extra hassle; subpixel anti-aliasing is a little nicety, but not any kind of crucial component. That’s a far cry from not even being able to use the wireless because the distro maintainer thinks it’s better not to have it automatically fetch the proprietary firmware blob when it detects it.

Quite to the contrary - I firmly believe that, given sufficient time and manpower, we would have no need at all for proprietary drivers, and I would love to see such a thing come to pass. But as you said in another post, we don’t live in a perfect world, and until someone gets Broadcom’s wireless reverse-engineered, or finishes 3D acceleration for Nouveau, or so on and so forth, there’s still times where it’s just a lot less pain to suck it up and live with something that is not free software. To act as though this is not the case (such as, for instance, to suggest that OS documentation make no mention whatsoever of there being such a thing as proprietary software) is to put dogma above the needs of actual users, and that’s not something I think the world needs any more of.

18

What is it you want them to do? Say they think proprietary drivers are an ok thing? Of course they won’t say that, they are against proprietary code. You might aswell try to get Ballmer to say GPL is an ok licence. On the other hand, neither of them can prevent YOU from using proprietary code or GPL.

I am assuming you are talking about Broadcom again, they have open sourced drivers which are now included in the Linux tree, afaik there are legacy hardware which still need the proprietary driver to be manually installed which is most likely the same situation as on Windows.

Secondly, I don’t even know if the distros are legally allowed to distribute their proprietary driver, as far as I can tell all distros point to broadcom’s webpage for those instead of providing it through a user-enabled repo where most other proprietary/patented code resides.

Also don’t know if NVidia actually allows their proprietary drivers to be shipped directly with a distro, which again could very well be why some distros choose to place such drivers in a ‘community-driven’/‘user-enabled’ repository where the distro itself may not have to bear any legal consequences, just as with code which is known to be based on patented ‘tech’.

Why is that a problem? It only affects those seeking to earn FSF’s endorsement, as such they must CHOOSE to do so.

19

It’d be nice if they’d acknowledge that sometimes proprietary drivers are necessary, until free alternatives catch up with them.

Thing is, “legacy hardware” is always useful to someone. The specific instance I’m referring to is this: the Powerbook G4 has a Broadcom wireless chipset. For some reason, getting it working under Linux requires a little utility to grab a binary blob from the actual device firmware (at least if I’m understanding the description in the repository correctly.) There is a utility for this in the repository, and it could easily be enabled by default, but (on Debian and MintPPC at least) it’s not, because it’s Proprietary and therefore has to go in the Non-Free Repository.

Why is that a problem? It only affects those seeking to earn FSF’s endorsement, as such they must CHOOSE to do so.[/quote]
Well yes, and the fact that the FSF endorses that kind of obstinately dogmatic thinking is one of the chief reasons that anybody bothers with it. No, they’re not forcing anybody to put FSF dogma ahead of the needs of users, but they’re advocating it.

20

But… That’s silly. Then it wouldn’t be the FSF. You’re basically saying “The people that promote the idea that non-free software is never the right solution should acknowledge that sometimes non-free software is the right solution”. See? Silly. :stuck_out_tongue:

In their opinion (and mine), proprietary drivers are never necessary, which means either actively choose to buy only hardware that supports free software or don’t use it. It is absolutely not an opinion everyone is forced to have, but I am extremely grateful that there are people fighting for me to have that opportunity to use that freedom.

Anyway, commodorjohn, in the future, to avoid these sorts of posts where you have to say the same thing again and again, all you need to say is “I’m a fan of open source software but I disagree with the free software movement.” :slight_smile:

21

[quote=drcouzelis]But… That’s silly. Then it wouldn’t be the FSF. You’re basically saying “The people that promote the idea that non-free software is never the right solution should acknowledge that sometimes non-free software is the right solution”. See? Silly. :stuck_out_tongue:

In their opinion (and mine), proprietary drivers are never necessary, which means either actively choose to buy only hardware that supports free software or don’t use it.[/quote]
But there’s a difference between saying that all software should be free, and saying that nobody should use any software that isn’t. The fact is, you can’t just make all software free (at least at present,) and there isn’t an infinite supply of manpower and time to develop suitable free alternatives to every piece of non-free software.

It’s easy to say “well, don’t buy non-open hardware then,” but not everybody has the time and energy or financial means to do that. We’ve already talked about the idea of re-purposing computers to reduce e-waste, and it’s also a big money-saver for people without the budget to buy a decent new rig (and there are a lot of them, especially given current economic conditions.) If those re-purposed computers aren’t completely built of free-software-friendly components, would you really have them be rendered unusable just for the sake of ideological purity?

Isn’t that basically what I’ve been saying?

22

Are you asking me personally? I’m just participating in this thread to help prevent the spread of misinformation about the beliefs of th FSF. I apologize if it appeared otherwise. :frowning:

For anyone that doesn’t know how the FSF would respond to this question:

Choosing to use only free software would not render a computer unusable. An operating system that contains only free software will run on most, if not all, personal computers.

The computer may not have hardware accelerated graphics, which means it won’t be able to have display drop shadow effects or play some video games, but nothing that I would consider making the computer unusable.

The computer may not have wireless internet, which means it would need to be used with a wired ethernet connection. In the case where this isn’t possible, a USB wifi adapter can be used, which is far from being expensive and, either way, does not make the computer unusable.

The same goes for any other hardware that isn’t currently supported by free software. Replace the one piece of hardware that is incompatible, or continue to use it but with limited functionality, or consider that it may not be as “essential” as you think it is. These may be inconveniences, but the FSF teaches that giving up your freedom for convenience is never worth it. (And yes, commodorejohn, I know that you don’t agree with this, and I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind.) :slight_smile:

…In regards to software (instead of hardware), the answer is similar, but I’d be happy to answer any questions about that as well.

Isn’t that basically what I’ve been saying?[/quote]

Yes, you have, but quotes like this:

…make that point hard for me to understand. I just wanted to make it clear, in case anyone else was having difficulty understanding what you meant.

23

[quote=commodorejohn]
It’d be nice if they’d acknowledge that sometimes proprietary drivers are necessary, until free alternatives catch up with them.[/quote]
No, they suggest that you use hardware for which there are open source drivers.

Yes, and if you are in need of running this particular legacy hardware you will have to manually download a proprietary driver, just like you would on Windows.

On the other hand, Linux supports a ton of legacy hardware right out of the box by virtue of open source drivers in the kernel tree.

And unlike with Windows, where lots of proprietary legacy drivers stop working between major revisions, thus making your legacy hardware unuseable, the Linux kernel devs will keep the in-tree drivers up and running against changes made in newer versions of the kernel, they can do this because they have the source code available so that they can make the appropriate necessary changes.

Who are? FSF? Obviously they will advocate the use of free software over proprietary. You on the other hand choose what’s best for you, if you find that a distro is ‘making you jump throgh hoops’ because it requires you to manually enable a repo then by all means don’t use it.

24

Now i don’t really want to get caught up in the FSF vs Proprietary software argument really ( though just posting here means i’ve done just that…) but Haiku is in a unique position compared to “GNU/Linux”.

GNU, as an OS, is designed to be compatible with UNIX. Its not designed to be binary compatible with any existing OS, just source compatible with UNIX-likes. Because the whole ABI is controlled by the developers, they have a lot of freedom to push their ideologies, ie no proprietary software. To even release software for GNU HURD and GNU/Linux at the same time would most likely involve a dedicated port for each. Binaries for the Linux kernel won’t run on HURD.

Haiku OTOH is trying to be binary compatible with an entire proprietary OS. BeOS’ biggest legacy was the plethora (compared to GNU HURD for example) of software, most of it being proprietary or abandoned, some of which does not have any FOSS alternatives. As such any binaries for BeOS should work perfectly fine in Haiku without modification, be it drivers or applications, even if Haiku ships with its own FOSS drivers and applications.

Haiku is of course, almost completely licensed under the MIT license, which is permissive. You can do anything you like with the code, ANYTHING. This means you can even fork the software and create a proprietary OS if you like ( think OS X) or of course, give back to the community. Its your call. IMHO this makes the MIT license much “freer” than the GPL.

25

Kia ora koutou

I don’t really want to get drawn into the GPL vs BSD debate. As I said in my original post, relicensing is not required, as long as all the essential code is under BSD/MIT licenses that meets the Free Software Definition (not “advertising clause” etc).

he FSF are primarily concerned with two things. User freedom and developer freedom. Their ideal is that everybody who uses a computer can be both, thanks to the availability of source code, but experience shows that protecting user/developer freedom requires more than that. Even Stallman agrees that we sometimes need to compromise, but he also points out that every compromise must be temporary, and in a service of our long term goal of being able (althugh not obliged) to use 100% free software for all computing tasks:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

The FSF endorsement list is intended to show that 100% free software stacks are technically possible, and they exist. Making them more usable, on more hardware, is an ongoing technical and political challenge, part of which involves convincing hardware manufacturers that user freedom matters, and that users care about it.

Because I care about user freedom, I’ve been increasingly a GNU/Linux user since 2007, and I’ve helped hundreds of people learn how to use it, mainly using Ubuntu. Ubuntu used to be great but has become a bloated hulk, with a terrible user interface, and built-in Canonical spyware (“UbuntuOne”) that hijacks the good name the Ubuntu Foundation has built up. After setting up UbuntuOne because it came as part of Ubuntu, I find out the server-side software is proprietary, I’m furious. I feel betrayed, and manipulated into making a compromise without informed consent. So now I’m now looking for another free code OS to champion.

The reason I join the forums and made the original post is that I really like Haiku, and I’m impressed with what you’ve already achieved in terms of usability. I’ve blogged on this here:
http://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/blog/2012/07/07/a-japanese-poem-which-runs-like-a-song/

If Haiku R1 was endorsed by the FSF, I would very likely recommend it over Ubuntu, and other newbie-orientated GNU/Linux distros which FSF does not endorse. If a FSF-endorsed Haiku R1 had hardware support as good or better than any of the FSF-endorsed GNU/ Linux, I would very likely recommend it over any distro.

I am planning to set up a co-operative business selling hardware with free code OS preinstalled. I would like to be able to sell a free gaming console like the OUYA, portable media players, specialised boxes for audio production and video editing etc. Haiku may be as good or better than GNU/Linux for any or all of these functions, but everything we sell will contain only software endorsed by the FSF.

Ryan Leavengood wrote:

I appreciate what the FSF has accomplished and I agree with many of their ideas, but they are also clearly not pragmatic. Their list of “unendorsed” Linux distros is a laundry list of all the most popular distros… I think when one looks at the real world people tend to give back on their own volition when dealing with open source software, and they don’t need a draconian license to force them to do so (please don’t try to argue that the GPL is not draconian, it is.) <<

With all due respect Ryan, I’m not sure what “real world” you’re talking about. In the real world Cisco built a business on selling hardware running the Linux kernel. They did this because it’s much cheaper that paying developers to create a new kernel from scratch, or even to maintain it. Recently, Cisco pushed out a firmware upgrade which, without your permission, turns the Cisco router you bought and paid for into a dumb terminal for their cloud service, forcing you to use that service. That’s my definition of draconian, and I think it’s totally pragmatic to protect people from that sort of behaviour. GPLv3 is one pragmatic tool that can be used to do that.

This is the risk that “permissive” (ie weak) free software licenses open users up to. Yes it encourages companies to adopt your software. It encourages companies with no ethics, who will use your software without giving back, and use it to imprison their users, as Cisco tried to do with that firmware rollout. Cisco were eventually shamed into backing down by a massive public backlash, which implies that people do actually care about their user freedoms, and demonstrates the importance of the work that groups like the FSF do.

I see no reason to support Haiku, or encourage people to use it, if it opens them up to being assimilated by corporate Borg. Of course, being endorsed by the FSF doesn’t stop corporations being evil with your software, but it does guarantee that users have a key to any prison cell those corporations might try to build with it.

Ryan:

It is very difficult not to use binary blobs for hardware unless one manufacturers the system from the ground up and ensures only openly documented hardware is used in the system. Ideally a “HaikuBox” would be such a thing, but right now we have to deal with the hardware that people have, and that means binary blobs for firmware, primarily wireless cards. <<

You do not have to use binary blobs for this, nor make support for such hardware part of the core OS. There are other ways to make unavoidable proprietary drivers etc available as a temporary measure, until free code drivers can be written. As I understand it, the FSF asks that proprietary code not be included in the official version, nor offered by the installer. If Haiku R1 was endorsed by the FSF, I would encourage all the free software developers I come in contact with to support it, write native drivers for it, develop applications on it, and make distros of it. I suspect you would attract many talented free software developers to work on the core system, who currently feel frustrated and crowded working under the benevolent dictatorship of Torvalds or the GNU project.

Ryan:

As for the license, Michael Phipps specifically chose MIT when he started the project so that Haiku could be more commercial friendly. Maybe a GPL expert would argue that the GPL does not hurt commercial software, but I don’t think that is the common perception. <<

Phipp’s belief that using an MIT/BSd style license would encourage more commercial use of Haiku may have made sense at the time, but the evidence makes it clear that he was wrong. Even at the time, I’d wager there were more commercially-supported server packages run on Linux than BSD. Now we can see consumer hardware shipping with Linux-based OS like Ubuntu, and especially Android. When you factor in the millions of uncounted users who install GNU/Linux on their newly bought Windows desktop/ laptop, or a second-hand one, the market for computers shipped with GNU/Linux is obviously much greater than the availability.

I will happily commercialise Haiku if it achieves FSF endorsement, and I suspect there are many others who would do the same. So you now have the same reason to seek FSF endorsement as Phipps thought he did not to use GPL. I’m sure FSF would work constructively with you to come up with a roadmap for getting there.

Note: As an old hand at reconditioning second-hand computer equipment with free code OS, I would even advocate a carefully considered weakening of the endorsement standards, in recognition of the fact that not everybody gets to choose what hardware they use. I do advocate allowing distros to help newbie users install proprietary software where there is no free code alternative, provided:
a) the proprietary code is a separate package, in a separate repository
b) proprietary packages are added after-the-fact, not during installation
c) the installation of the proprietary packages warns people about the possible impacts of their freedom of using proprietary code
d) the system is set up to automatically replace proprietary code with free code as it becomes available and stable enough for production systems

Ma te wā
Strypey

26

I don’t understand this fanatism about free software. User need programs that can do what he need. User don’t need abstract “freedom”. Most users don’t care free software they use or not. Actually, restricting installing proprietary software limit user and developer freedom. User want high-quality software and developer want money for this.

More, Haiku has much more freedom, than Linux. Windows and Haiku have binary compatability. This mean that I can install 10 years old program and run it without problems. With Linux I can install programs only from repository.

Also Linux forbid independent developers. All programs need to be added in repository before it will be avalible for user. Haiku is able to run all applications including applications from independed developers and proprietary software. With Linux this is impossible becouse of ideology and constant binary compatability breaking.