2006/11/3, Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray debarshi.ray@gmail.com:
BOSTON, November 2, 2006 - Free Software Foundation announces release of gNewSense version 1.0.
(Screenshots available at http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense)
Mark Pilgrim has written about gNewSense GNU/Linux and he explains why it is important.
"Besides the separate repositories, the "binary blobs" in question are primarily drivers in the kernel which are distributed under non-free licenses or which have unclear licensing terms. Debian has been struggling with this issue http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing and has decided to allow such drivers to ship in Debian Etch (due to be released Real Soon Now). Ubuntu also ships with a tainted kernelhttp://www.tux.org/lkml/#s1-18and a "restricted" repository that contains Canonical-supported non-free video drivers for ATI and nVidia cards. gNewSense rejects all such drivers and ships a kernel which is 100% Free Software, no matter how useless that may be in the real world. The gNewSense maintainers apparently feel that saying you're "a little bit non-free" is akin to saying you're "a little bit pregnant." Close doesn't count, and even if people don't notice the difference today, they'll definitely notice it nine months from now."
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/11/06/gnewsense
Regards Praveen