The GNU ethical repository criteria

Well, my reading does not suggest at all that they are "evaluating ethics",
they are evaluating services ("ethical repository"). As a result of the
evaluation the service might be considered ethical, or not. It's a boolean
thing.

> > To call it "ethics score", or even "'ethics' score", is your own device.
> >
> > ...
>
> It assigns a grade letter and potential "extra credit" to any repository
> hosting site evaluated using it. How is that not a score?

It's a score, alright, but you're tying score to "ethics". I can't see how you
arrive at that. The way I read it, the quality of a service being ethical is
boolean, the gradient (score or rating) is not ethics, it's, say, preference.
The only point at which that gradient necessarily crosses "ethics" is in the
Acceptable grade. If a service scores at least Acceptable, then it's ethical.
And that's all.

> There's no narrative here, just a documented titled to be ethical criteria...

Well, you see, we disagree then. You again tie ethics to the criteria and
consider them a ruler for ethics. This is not what I understand from the text.

> ...still no one has explained why a service like GitLab using the term
> "GNU/Linux" has anything to do with giving them an "A"...
>
> I don't see why a service can only earn an "A" by meeting other FSF goals
> (promoting "GNU/Linux" terminology and promoting the FSF's licenses).
>
> [...]
>
> > ...why can't they include their own suggestions, guidelines, directives,
> > opinions?
>
> Because it reduces the authority -- and thus usefulness -- of the document.

It's their criteria, for their projects. I see no problem. And you already
gave a fair reason: advocacy.

> [...]
>
> Finally, saying an ethical system doesn't insist on being canon is...

I consider this inapplicable, this is not an ethical system.

In general, I get the impression that you want take these criteria in the
abstract, as a sort of philosophical treatise (excuse the perhaps stretched
analogy). I see them as a tool, a practical device to address a real ethical
concern.

That's all I have to say. Cheers.