Virtual Newsletter about Software Freedom

August 02, 2026

GNU without Freedesktop?
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Freedesktop is almost essential in most GNU systems.
Even some GNU packages depend on Freedesktop.

GSRC has a list of some packages which are non-GNU[1], so you can try to avoid those.
It may be more difficult to avoid Freedesktop on Linux-libre systems, as Linux kernel teams and Freedesktop often work together.

On the Hurd it is much easier, as while there are some non-GNU parts, there are no Freedesktop requrired.
Some Freedesktop packages don't compile anyway, like libDRM, which ends up making Mesa not compile.

I am also working on a script that creates GSRC-based systems, and it will have an option for allowing non-GNU or not.
Though I haven't fully tested if GNU/Linux-libre works without Freedesktop, GNU/Hurd should work without it.

- NexusSfan

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gsrc/package-list.html

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