On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 12:25:32AM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 01:08:02PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 07:41:02AM -0800, Osamu Aoki wrote: > > > I believe "Free and GNU are good, bigot of any kind is bad." > > > > Excuse me, but I have demonstrated more than once in this very discussion > > that I do not fit the definition of bigot. If there is any doubt in your > > One of dictionary.com's definitions of bigot, to use one of Branden's > tactics: > > "A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as > unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing > from them as unreasonable or wicked." > > from Webster's revised unabridged dictionary. > > Which part of this definition doesn't apply? Aside from jocular remarks (and flamebait), I haven't seen anyone liken Free Software to religion, and I also haven't seen John characterize anyone as unreasonable or wicked for disagreeing with him. Since the definition is conjunctive, the appellation fails even *if* one presumes that Free Software is a "religious" issue. > It says that developers who oppose non-free (such as yourself) are not > required to maintain non-free packages, so there is no resource issue. Developers who oppose the eating of meat are not required to do so by the Debian Social Contract; that doesn't mean Debian has any place operating butcher's shops for the benefit of our users. > > Then why to the opponents to non-free removal continue to trot out examples > > of "essential" bits of non-free software, even after the free alternatives > > have been developed for what was once "essential" non-free software? > > Because they haven't been in all cases. Depends on what your standard of "alternative" is. For instance, a lot of people feel that Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, et al. are all viable Free replacements for Netscape 4.77. Others don't. Who's right? > Perhaps we should be reviewing the non-free package list. Susan has > posted one which is suitable. A useless exercise until we know what we mean by "alternative" or "replacement". -- G. Branden Robinson | A fundamentalist is someone who Debian GNU/Linux | hates sin more than he loves branden@debian.org | virtue. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John H. Schaar
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