RE: Commercial programs in Debian
You're both right...
Of course we want to promote free software, but without compatibility
with commercial applications, many solution stacks are missing key
components. That excludes Debian in an area where SUSE and Red Hat are
proud to stand up and say they support Oracle, SAP, or whatever.
The Debian way is to promote the availability of source code, but is
that more important than worldwide adoption in general? The focus
should be on capturing the audience first, and converting commercial
ISVs to the open source model after you have a captive audience. Am I
wrong?
-----Original Message-----
From: A J Stiles [mailto:deb64@earthshod.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 1:17 AM
To: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Commercial programs in Debian
On Friday 05 May 2006 06:53, Gudjon I. Gudjonsson wrote:
> Hi
> Sorry for the disturbion but I would like to mention some things.
> I have been thinking about if it was possible to set up some bug list
as a
> kind of quality assurance for commercial programs in Debian. Most
> commercial programs I have seen are only said to be compatible with
RedHat
> and sometimes SuSe. Such a list might make it more interesting for the
> companies to port their applications to Debian and it would definetly
make
> my life easier:).
This is a most un-Debian-like thing to be doing. Instead of running
non-Free
software on Debian, we should be seeking to create real Free
alternatives
{although, demanding source code from vendors would certainly not hurt.
I
have nothing in principle against the use of reasonable force in the
course
of obtaining Source Code.}
Availability of Source Code is *the* single biggest reason why so much
of the
software that is found in Debian can run on so many different
architectures
{second only to NetBSD if I recall correctly?} That diversity is
something
we should be proud of. *Un*availability of Source Code has already
destroyed
a certain other operating system: every new release has to support a
growing
heap of legacy code, and every insecurity ever exploited by a legitimate
program has to remain.
--
AJS
delta echo bravo six four at earthshod dot co dot uk
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