[Sussex] Distros

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

*This is not an April fools joke*

Some comments were made last night about "how free" a particular
distro is.  

Karl mentioned the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Social
Contract. These are the very foundation of Debian's claim to be a Free
Software distribution.  Once upon a time it was the only distro that
met these standards, now of course there are now other distros that meet the
requirements:

        - Ubuntu 
        - Knoppix, 
        - Gnoppix (which is now part of Ubuntu) 
        - User Linux (which looks to be joining forces with Ubuntu to
          escape the Debian release cycle).

All of these are of course Debian variants (at least in heritage).

Thats all well and good, but none of these distros actually fully
comply with the FSF's definition of Free Software.  The Debian
definition is looser and is in fact Open Source rather than Free
Software specific (Indeed the Open Source definition is derived from
the DFSG).

To date there is exactly one distro that is truly "Free Software" and
as such is the only distro recommended by the Free Software
Foundation.  It's name is Ututo and it's based on Gentoo*.  It's
developed in Argentina and you can find out more here:

https://e.ututo.org.ar/indexee.html


.. I've never tried using it and I don't know much about is as yet,
but we're very excited about it.  RMS in particular has been
dropping it's name into interviews and talks.  The FSF are going to
help out hosting the ISO's.

===
* Gentoo itself is a long was from meeting the FSF's standards

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org

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