Hi Bernhard,
Zitat von "Bernhard Reiter" reiter@fsfeurope.org:
On Friday 02 September 2011 13:32:35 Hannes Hauswedell wrote:
Am Freitag, 2. September 2011, 13:58:52 schrieb Matthias Kirschner:
- Hannes Hauswedell h2@fsfe.org [2011-08-31 22:49:18 +0200]:
"Conditions for PDF-Readers"
To be listed on this page a PDF reading software must fulfil certain conditions. First and foremost it has to be Free Software[link to our definition]. This includes -- but is not limited to -- the software component responsible for rendering the PDF (e.g. Skim[link] does not qualify, because it uses a proprietary library for PDF rendering).
In our technical definition we should make clear that we mean "additional" libraries for proprieary systems. Check out the Gnu GPL line on this., The components that normally come with _all_ versions of a proprietary operating systems can be used by Free Software on it, even with the GNU GPL. We should not get stronger than this.
We are stronger than this, because we are about Free PDF-Readers.
I don't know what library Skim uses so I cannot say, but the criteria should be understandable, otherwise people will rule out all pdf readers on proprietary platforms. They all use proprietary libraries at least some.
Yes, but these libraries can be replaced. E.G. Okular on Windows might link against some Windows libs, but the same piece of source-code will produce the same piece of software on a completely free system.
With Skim this is not the case. Skim uses PDFKit which is installed on every MacOSX and cannot be removed, but there is no gain in Freedom for the user, because *all* functionality depends on this proprietary lib. Needless to say you cannot port Skim to another (free) OS.
So I think our policy is sound. We have discussed this multiple times, but of course I open for any new input on the matter :)
Currently we only cover regular desktop PDF-Readers. Software for editing, converting or creating PDFs is not listed; Software for mobile platforms is not listed and web-applications ("Software as a Service") are not either.
Note that most of my laptops are quite "mobile" and can deal with networks connections being there or not and changing, so "mobile" does not seem to be a fitting term. If you mean small handheld devices or touch screen usage, please say so. :) (My company did an application called Kontact Touch, which can be used on mobile and immobile machines.)
Thanks for progressing here, this is hard, but important work! I hope my comments are useful!
Thanks for your input! I am in Israel now and only in an internet cafe once in a while so decision-making will be slow, if it involves me. I will be back in Berlin on October, 1st.
Regards, Hannes