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LXer: Get a virtual Richard Stallman

Published at LXer:

Not sure of the line between free software and proprietary software? Then ask Richard Stallman. A virtual Richard Stallman that is, which runs on a Linux system and alerts users to software they are using that doesn't meet the strict GPL line.

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On my 64-bit system, the only thing he finds is my ATI drivers.

Admittedly, that's largely because things like Flash, w32codecs, etc. aren't available.

Always wondered what the heck the vrms package did.

$ vrms
doc-linux-nonfree-html Linux HOWTOs in HTML format (non-free)
emacs21-common-non-dfsg GNU Emacs shared, architecture independent, non-DFSG i
gcc-4.1-doc documentation for the GNU compilers (gcc, gobjc, g++)
gcc-doc-base several GNU manual pages
grokking-the-gimp GIMP tutorial book by Carey Bunks (HTML)
lha lzh archiver
Reason: No modifications allowed, non-network distributions problematic
ltmodem-common set up ltmodem devices
madwifi-ng-tools tools for the Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi
maelstrom An arcade-style game resembling Asteroids.
opera The Opera Web Browser
rutebook Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition, an online
scribus-doc english-language documentation for the internal help b
sl-modem-daemon SmartLink software modem daemon
sun-java6-bin Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
sun-java6-fonts Lucida TrueType fonts (from the Sun JRE)
sun-java6-jdk Sun Java(TM) Development Kit (JDK) 6
sun-java6-jre Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
sun-java6-plugin The Java(TM) Plug-in, Java SE 6
teamspeak-client VoIP chat for online gaming
unrar Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)
Reason: Modifications problematic
xsnow Brings Christmas to your desktop

21 non-free packages, 1.1% of 1942 installed packages. Hm didn't flag Flash, Adobe Reader, w32codecs, Nvidia driver, and probably a couple other things. I know I am a bad bad Debian user. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by craigevil

Hm didn't flag Flash, Adobe Reader, w32codecs, Nvidia driver, and probably a couple other things. I know I am a bad bad Debian user. :)

Look at flash copyright (in /usr/share/doc), you will see that it's:

Quote:

License:

This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
[..]

Surprise!! In fact the package downloads the binary from macromedia directly, tricky..

Also don't expect vrms to work on non-packages software. It's hard from a binary to see if it's free or not ;)
Maybe in the future the elf format will be changed to include such information :)

Quote:

$vrms

sun-java6-bin Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
sun-java6-jdk Sun Java(TM) Development Kit (JDK) 6
sun-java6-jre Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
sun-java6-plugin The Java(TM) Plug-in, Java SE 6
unrar Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)
Reason: Modifications problematic

5 non-free packages, 0.3% of 1798 installed packages.

hmm ... the inevitable natural route things like that would go down into if it really became the only acceptable way of thinking and doing about things would be something quasi-political , economical and cultural ... something like the magical droplets throughout ages that we have seen ...

infact , why not ... that would be way way better than just playing virtual computer games ... ^_^

//give me virtual sadhus anytime whom i always prefer and love ...

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vrms/debian/control

Note that vrms is not limited to Debian systems only (which means that it also works with Debian-derived distributions such as Ubuntu).

Strip the Debian cruft and you could try 'n get away with doing:

Code:

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vrms/vrms_1.12-0.1.tar.gz -O /dev/stdout \

| tar -xz vrms-1.12/reasons/vrms -O > /tmp/reasons && rpm -qa --qf="%{name}\n" \

| while read pkg; do grep "${pkg}:" /tmp/reasons; done; rm -f /tmp/reasons

maybe, but mind you, there's "some" other licenses..:

Code:

rpm -qa --qf="%{license}\n" | egrep -vi '(gpl|pubk)' | sort | uniq | nl