Re: Flame against non-free burning, time to think.
Hi, You are writing in the blazing fast speed :)
On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 11:25:23PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 11:07:04PM -0500, Mike Dresser wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Branden Robinson wrote:
> >
> > > Clearly, 2.7% is too high a threshhold for some. How small shall the
> > > propotion get before we're not screwing our users by dumping non-free?
> > > 2.5%? 2.0% 1.5%? 1.0% 0.001%?
I do not think % shall be the criteria.
> > Replace my beloved pine, and I'll start using mpg321 instead, and
> > I'm all set :D
>
> I switched from pine to mutt a few years ago, and did not find it
> difficult. Back then I didn't even know about the pine-ish keybinding
> muttrc phenomenon (maybe remapping keys wasn't even supported in mutt
> 0.59 or whatever it was -- it was long time ago).
I do not understand point you are making.
You had choice between mutt and pine. You chose mutt. Several factors
affected it but "Free" was one of the deciding factor. After all it was
your personal choice and nobody forced you to do this even in remote
sense. I think that is the way it should be for everyone.
Do not you want everyone to enjoy the same freedom and choice you
enjoyed? Just because you are through or majority of DD are through
with pine, mutt should not be forced to the minority of USERs who
needs/wants to use non-free pine or even should feel like to be forced
to use mutt.
Even if Debian drops support for non-free, I understand Debian is not
forcing people to use Free software theoretically. After all people can
get those software elsewhere. But from USER's viewpoint, if Debian push
FREE idea too much by dropping non-free, users will feel like they are
forced to swallow MAJORITY of Debian's opinion. I think it will taste
bad and this kind of approach will not help FREE software at all. If
you consider the perception of Debian integrity as a factor to remove
non-free, this is one to consider.
The judgment of the "LAST DAY" should be left to the USER. In
practical terms, this means until the last day its sponsor DD stop
supporting it in non-free or the USER decide to switch himself earlier.
The sheer idea of making this kind of transition by some kind of
majority rule is very saddening. I am begging you to reconsider your
position. Promotion of FREE software is what we all want to do.
I can live with such idea as the one Manoj mentioned to make install of
non-free software to trigger some messages to remind people. If some
one like you who are concerned can provide a FREE replacement
recommendation infrastructure (some kind of replacement list which prompt
people before installing), it will be quite amusing toy to install.
These may quite likely be turn off by many user but we can show how much
we care about FREE software. Caring about FREE software is not forcing
others to use it by GR.
By the way, numerically non-free has increased but look into the ratio
within archive and growth rate. The share of FREE software is
increasing. If you consider increase of DD which is bringing many
softwares and stringent License review which has pushed some archives to
the non-free, increase in number is not so much we need to worry. It is
healthy growth which is one third of FREE counterparts. non-free's
impact to the archive s decreasing. Aren't you happy with the number?
> Anyway, what concerns me about the demands that non-free be kept until
> there is a "replacement" in free is exactly the argument you're
> proposing. You want much more than just a replacement -- you want a
> clone. That's setting the bar awfully high. With that logic people
> wouldn't migrate from Windows to Linux in the first place.
So you think making non-free expelled by GR will move more people from
WINDOWS to LINUX? I do not understand your point.
Also you mentioned in other thread, "relaxing rule for main to include
historical semi-free softwares while expelling rest of non-free" is not
a good idea. Then we really compromise our 100% free promise. What
ever historical or stupid licensing reasons exist, non-free is non-free.
If you find some program which should not be in our archive, file a bug
report on them with clear technical or legal reasons. Existence of
replacement or similar program is not enough, though.
Osamu
--
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Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> Cupertino CA USA, GPG-key: A8061F32
.''`. Debian Reference: post-installation user's guide for non-developers
: :' : http://qref.sf.net and http://people.debian.org/~osamu
`. `' "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software" --- Social Contract
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