on naming the devils in the Linux-libre front page

[Nick]

Quoth Alexandre Oliva:
> > I'd really appreciate it if you called the distributions by 
> > their preferred names
> 
> Now here's a twist: if you replace something as fundamental as the
> kernel in a distro, is it still the same distro?

Well yes, I would say so. As an example, Gentoo has ebuilds for 
several differently patched versions of the Linux kernel, and the 
FreeBSD kernel. I believe Debian are similar in this regard.

But I see that as largely irrelevant to this discussion. These are 
builds intended to be installed on top of a specific distribution.

> But while on the one hand we don't mind that people use such distros if
> they're careful to not give up their freedoms or encourage others to do
> so, on the other we don't want to steer others towards these distros
> ourselves, for this may lead people who don't know better to make
> mistakes.
> 
> I see the two issues as orthogonal, and the arguments you presented here
> are pretty much all related with the “using”, rather than with the
> “promoting”, which is the relevant issue to decide whether or not to
> name the distros.

Yes, thanks for clarifying this, I agree. If you're really concerned 
that mentioning the names of distributions could be seen as 
promoting them, I'd suggest putting them in a separate section, with 
a note above explaining that they aren't recommended as they allow 
easy access to non-free software, with a link to the FSFs opinions 
on classifying distributions as free.
 
> Now, it may be that Genfree is not as good or clear a pun as the others,
> so the reference is not as self-evident.  Any ideas on how to fix that?

Please don't try to close this discussion down before we've reached 
some sort of agreement.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Nick

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