[Replicant] Replicant Digest, Vol 193, Issue 4

[Josh Branning]

On 24/10/16 02:16, David Heath wrote:
> Hello. For what it's worth, I think non-free should be available to
> encourage adoption of Replicant. Would it be acceptable for Replicant's
> F-droid to simply hide all non-free by default or clearly present a
> non-free warning for those apps? This seems quite simple if F-droid's
> repo allows for categorical tagging, but if that is not possible,
> perhaps segregating the repos is necessary. I understand that it may be
> desirable to not ship any non-free repo, in which case the latter might
> be necessary, but adding the non-free repo should at least be convenient
> for new users who want the same Android apps they have become used to.
> Personally, I believe just using Replicant is a good step in the right
> direction. Clear warnings and categorical stratification seem ideal to me.
>

'  The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no 
specific recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs. Nor 
should the distribution refer to third-party repositories that are not 
committed to only including free software; even if they only have free 
software today, that may not be true tomorrow. [1]

I guess that would mean a new repository would need to be created if it 
is going to stay on the FSF list of "Free Non-GNU Distributions". [2]

But it still doesn't solve the problem of which 'anti-features' are 
actually allowed to remain.

For instance, with the non-free network services anti-feature. Even a 
browser could be said to use non-free network services, because some 
web-servers run proprietary software.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-non-gnu-distros.html

P.S.

If the devs choose to go down the repository route, a free toolchain to 
build apps would also be needed, preferably one which can be built 
separately from the operating system.

As I understand it, F-Droid are using the stock android toolchain(s) to 
build apps as it is.