We just ship a binary firmware for wifi cards for user convenience (this is easily removed if you don’t want it) and suddenly we are as bad as Windows or OS X. So our 17 years of effort writing free software are worth nothing?
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Wait, what? When did Haiku go closed source? OMG OMG OMG! Alert the FSF! Sound the alarm! We’re doomed!
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The topic is getting boring 
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Lets rename it to “Making for Haiku Free software”
Given the current perception of the Free Software concept, you are not writing free software. You are writing open source software.
I’ll stick with the definition of free software as given by the fsf - the 4 freedoms to use, study, modify and share software. I do my best so that the software I write can be given with these freedoms to as much people as possible.
Now if people think free software is something more, I would argue they are using the word for more than what it means, and they should rather find another word.
But if that pleases you I will use the term “open source”, tome it does not make much of a difference
That’s because you don’t understand the point of Free Software. I already said that above or another post, but I will repeat.
Free Software doesn’t only warrant people to receive the 4 freedoms itself, but ensures that people who receive the freedom is obliged to give it to others. In your situation you are surely giving people access to those freedoms, but nothing ensures that those freedoms will be warranted to other people. That’s all.
I think the correct meaning of FS should be respected because this term was created by whom defined it, just like any word.
Let’s get data from the source:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
The definition of free software is very clear and is exactly the four freedoms I described. What you are thinking about is Copyleft, detailed in the same page, and even the FSF uses a different term for it, because they acknowledge the MIT and BSD as free software, but non-copyleft, licences.
And indeed, Haiku is not copyleft, and nor is most software I write, when I have a choice. It is my decision to make my software free, it is not my duty to force other people, including users of my software, to do the same. I also think that advertising free software this way works better in the long term, because people can observe it and see that it works quite well (or sometimes it doesn’t), and then make an informed decision on following with it. I think this is better than trying to force people to respect the freedoms.
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Well, personally I would rather like that haiku was gpl licensed, to avoid closed developments as it happens with sony and freebsd, to quote an example. But, beyond my personal preferences, I think this circumstance was already in mind of the core team when they had chosen the mit one. As they considered this license fits with their objectives and development model, I, as user, should respect it, mainly because it keeps the floss nature of Haiku 
Right. Over the time this definition changed, I remember times when GPL and MIT compatibility wasn’t obvious. Then, it seems that I am using a stronger definition of free software than that of FSF and I am proud of that.
I will not discuss about what is right for you to do, since it’s up to you.
Thanks for pointing out!
There used to be a version of the BSD licence (not MIT) with 4 clauses. The extra clause was:
“All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the organization.”
This, apparently, gets in the way of the four freedoms (only indirectly: it is only about advertising material - which can be considered part of the right to share). By now, most of the work published under this licence has been rewritten or relicenced, so this is no longer a problem.
There used to be similar problems with other licences (IIRC, Apache 1.0 for example?), so it is nice to have the GPL around and that it has enough weight to convince people to adjust their licences so that they fully grant the 4 freedoms.
The problem happened in different flavours, for example MPL 1.1 and GPL are incompatible even if both are approved by the FSF. GPL v3 actually solved a bit of those problems by clarifying various aspects. If I remember correctly, the Apache 2.0 license question has been resolved in v3.
The fact is that, gpl v2 was a bit hard when it get in lawsuits. So in past the situation was a bit less clear than now.
However, returning to the topic of the discussion, it is true that MIT/3-clause-BSD are considered free software, but you are distributing your OS using binary blobs that is going to deny the freedoms 1 and 3, because you don’t supply the source code of those portion of software, even if those are not substantial portions, that alone makes your sw non-free.
Indeed. Which is why I talked ony about “software I write”. If I was able to write wifi firmwares, I would happily do so, but the manufacturer won’t give the specifications allowing this to happen. So I have to cope with using a binary blob. I decide to live with this rather than no WiFi support. There is a compromise here, users often value working software over free software. I think it is a bad thing that the GNU project largely ignores this and pretends software being free is a selling point so strong that anything else doesn’t matter (this is true if you want RMS to use your software, but for most other people it won’t apply).
Basically, they are on a fight against non-free software, while I think the Open Source Initiative way (showing that free software is a way to make better software) is more convincing. I don’t force anyone into free software or fight for it, I just lead by example and let people decide if they want to follow or not.
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