Branden Robinson presumes that the GNU Project's decision to stop endorsing Debian must be meant as a form of pressure. This is complete confusion, because the GNU Project never stopped endorsing Debian.
The GNU Project has never endorsed Debian, because ever since we first considered the question, the Debian servers have been distributing and recommending non-free packages. I think this practice is entirely wrong, but I did not try to change it with vilification and pressure. Instead, for several years I talked with some friendly Debian developers to promote a Debian decision to change the practice. But the proposals were voted down, and eventually I stopped trying. When asked, I say that Debian is better in regard to freedom than the other distributions, but still not good enough. The GNU Project is still looking for a GNU/Linux distribution to recommend. I thought we had found one in GNU/LinEx; it contained non-free packages but its developers said they would remove them. When they told me that change was made, I thought we had finally found a distribution to endorse. However, Jose Marchesi of GNU Spain informed me that it contains other non-free packages, which means we can't recommend it. We are still looking for a distribution we can recommend to the public. If at some point Debian distributes main from a server that doesn't include or refer people to non-free software and documentation, the GNU Project could point to that server as a place to get an entirely free version of the GNU system. We could say this even if the system on that server did not include our manuals--but in that case, we would not find that system entirely satisfactory. We could not endorse it in glowing terms, and we would continue looking for a better alternative.
