Cyberspace, November 8, 2010—Linux hasn't got any Freer between the Linux-2.6.33-libre announcement, back in March, and the present announcement, that marks the release of Linux-2.6.36-libre. Linux now contains more non-Free Software, and more drivers in its Free core that require separately distributed non-Free Software to function.

"Following are the GNU/Linux distributions we know of which have a firm policy commitment to only include and only propose free software. They reject non-free applications, non-free programming platforms, non-free drivers, or non-free firmware “blobs”.

This is a short list of five different completely Free Software GNU/Linux distributions. They are focused on being entirely Free Software, and are all built around the Linux-Libre kernel. They aren't "official" yet, but they're certainly worth a look.

«Linux-libre is a project that aims to publish and maintain modified versions of the Linux kernel that only include free software...» — via Linux-libre, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia —

The Debian project has been working in removing non-free firmware from the Linux kernel shipped with Debian for the past two release cycles. At the time of the releases of Debian 4.0 "Etch" and 5.0 "Lenny", however, it was not yet possible to ship Linux kernels stripped of all non-free firmware bits.

"The GNU operating system is a complete free software system, upward-compatible with Unix. GNU stands for “GNU's Not Unix”. Richard Stallman made the Initial Announcement of the GNU Project in September 1983. A longer version called the GNU Manifesto was published in September 1985 [...] By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components except one—the kernel.

One of Linus Torvalds' greatest contributions to free software – and, indeed, to software in general – came about purely by chance. As he told me back in 1996, as he reflected on how the Linux kernel had come about and grown...

Knowing when a GNU/Linux distribution is free used to be simple. If all its software had licenses approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) or the Open Source Initiative, then a distribution was free. Otherwise, it wasn't.

Linux is Free Software. Generally the average person tends to think of “Linux” as simply one operating system, but it’s rather a family of systems. Think of Linux and the various distributions as branches on the same tree-trunk.