Ubuntu compatibility with Debian?

[James Wilkinson]

Vincenzo wrote:

> If you use a not-beer-free distro you loose the freedom to modify a
> package compile options/dependencies.

David Teague wrote:
> This is not true. The entire distro is (as it must be) GPL'd so I
> can fetch the sources and do exactly the same thing for that distro
> that you describe for Ubuntu.

Hmm. I don't think that's right, either.

You're right in as much as open-source software has to come with the
source code to modify it (freedom as in speech). This has nothing to
do with whether the distribution as a whole is free as in free beer. [1]

But very few distributions are entirely GPL. Apache, for example, comes
with a non-GPL compatible license. BSD-derived software tends to have
BSD licenses. Ubuntu, which is undoubtedly free-as-in-beer, does not
give you the freedom to modify all its packages' compile options,
because it includes non-free drivers to which we do not have the source
code.

Some distributions (Fedora) don't include non-free software: you can
modify all its packages. Yet it isn't entirely GPL.

James.

[1] You're free to modify any part of RHEL 3, to the best of my
knowledge. You're not allowed to use the Red Hat name in a copied or
derived distro (and so have to recompile). I maintain that this is still
freedom-as-in-speech because this is precisely one of the limitations we
have on speech, and we claim to have free speech.

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E-mail address: james | "We've just been contacted by the Lady of the Lake."
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