Dependence on nonfree software

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

The rules for hosting packages on Savannah say that the package
must not depend on any nonfree software.  It turns out that this
criterion is unclear.

That is meant reject packages that need the user to install
some nonfree software on per own computer and run it there.
Running nonfree software means surrendering freedom, and we
don't want Savannah packages to encourage users to do that.

However, there is a different case which has arisen: where the package
communicates with a service which is (or might be) implemented by
nonfree software running on someone else's server.

Morally speaking, that is a totally different issue.  The service
may be good, or it may be bad (a dis-service), but either way
using the service does not mean you run nonfree software yourself.

So I think the Savannah hosting rules need to be modified
to say that the criterion is about nonfree software to be run
on the user's own computers, and that it does not apply to
communication with services run by other people or entities.

Would someone like to work on a draft of this change?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)