Subject: bug#46385: User awareness of Anti-Features

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2022 17:12:42 -0400

Hi,

Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> writes:

[...]

>> * ads (I don't think any application in Guix has these?)
>> * tracking (should be patched out if possible)
>> * non-free-network-services
>> * non-free-dependencies (probably not allowed in upstream Guix, but maybe in a channel)
>>
>> The code behind ‘guix show’ and ‘guix search’ would need to
>> be adjusted to display anti-features, and the ‘guix install’ code
>> should warn if someone installs a package with anti-features.
>
> I’m sympathetic with the idea of raising awareness of those
> anti-features.  However, I don’t see a clear way we could “define” each
> possible anti-feature; some are definitely ill-defined (for instance, a
> service is neither “free” nor “non-free” in the same sense as software
> can be free or non-free.)  It’s also not entirely clear to me how the UI
> could make good use of it.

I agree.  It's not well defined, and to me following the FSDG seems an
already good warranty that you're getting only free software from a
project dedicated to fixing any freedom issues that may be discovered.

> That said, there are anti-features that we have always patched out in
> the past, such as tracking/“phoning home” and auto-upgrades.  Perhaps we
> could formalize that in our packaging guidelines?

It'd be good to have this documented, indeed.

Thanks,

Maxim