Re: Discussion - non-free software removal
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 08:56 pm, Branden Robinson wrote:
> Perhaps he conceives of the possibility that Debian's promotion of
> non-free software through our distribution of it retards the progress of
> Free Software, thus working against it as our Social Contract implies
> will not.
* (Dons asbestos suit, it's getting hairy in here)
(Again, IANADD, just a happy user)
May I make a suggestion from the perspective of a someone who is currently
using non-free but would be very happy indeed with an all-Free distribution
if it could do all the same things ?
If the intention of the proposed GR, or at least part of the intention, is to
promote "the progress of Free Software" then I would suggest that it would be
more effective if it stated that non-free would be dropped at some
clearly-defined and not too close point in the future (6 months from now, 1
year from now, next release, whatever...).
This would give three things:
(i) Time to set up whatever infrastructure is needed to support the remaining
non-free packages.
(ii) Time for the people who use non-free packages to prepare for the change
(iii) A strong incentive for the people using/wanting the functionality of
non-free to "put up or shut up" and do what needs to be done to provide Free
alternatives. Deadlines focus the mind, as they say.
Personally, the only non-free package that is essential to me is graphviz. Any
other graphviz users out there want to talk off-list about finding / tweaking
/ making a replacement ?
- Derek
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