> On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 02:00:14PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
quoted text
> >     OpenBSD is by far the most free OS in the landscape.  Everything that
> >     ships with it is free or else it won't be distributed with it.
> > 
> > Yes, that's what I was told.  I was also told that OpenBSD's ports
> > system includes non-free programs.  Is that accurate too?
> 
> Strictly speaking, no.  If you unpack ports.tar.gz
> you will find a bunch of makefiles, packing lists,
> & c., all of which are free.  OpenBSD's ports system
> depends on programs in the base system which are free.
> On a modern UNIX-like operating system it possible,
> even easy, to use free tools like awk, make, perl,
> sh, and so on, directly or indirectly, to facilitate
> the installation and maintenance of (free and non-free)
> software.  Your asking the question indicates that you
> might have done better to exclude OpenBSD from the
> scope of your remarks.  When one does not know, the
> most appropriate statement is 'I don't know.'
> 
> Loosely speaking, you can get away with saying
> pretty much anything that suits you at the time.
> 
> Loosely speaking is the problem.

William is right.

The OpenBSD ports tree is just a scaffold, and that scaffold is 100%
free.  It contains no non-free parts.

It contains URL's to non-free software, and free Makefiles that
knows how to build that non-free software.   But the entire ports
tree has no non-free software in it at all.

Does that make it non-free?

Are all operating systems non-free then, because they can be used
to write free Makefiles which compile non-free software?

Richard -- you spoke out of line.  You are wrong.