Re: your mail
@ 01/06/2004 09:55 : wrote Marek Habersack :
> On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 01:50:00AM -0500, Joe Wreschnig scribbled:
>
>> On Mon, 2004-05-31 at 21:31, Marek Habersack wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 06:09:14PM -0800, D. Starner scribbled:
>>>
>>>>>> 1) It encourages free alternatives to be written.
>>>>>
>>>>> Everytime I see some smartass writing that, I wish they would
>>>>> actually damned code that alternative. Then and ONLY then they
>>>>> have the right to remove anything.
>>>>
>>>> If I upload AutoCAD, will you oppose removing it? Part of what
>>>> makes the
>>> If there is no alternative? No, I wouldn't oppose it then. I would
>>> be glad there was AutoCAD in Debian, since then I could put Debian
>>> on my sister's machine (which needs AutoCAD, 3DMax and ArchiCAD,
>>> none of which exist under Linux OSes)
>>
>> How did you pass your P&P? I ask this seriously, because I was asked
>> specifically to uphold the Debian Social Contract and abide by the
>
> DFSG. Oh, here we go. Ask James Troup, not me :) Geez, how old are
> you? Anyhow, you are free to move a GR to remove me from the Debian
> project. Feel free to do so (and gain the grattitude of the free
> software world, hehe)
>
>> Apparently, you weren't?
>
> And you're the one to judge. Rats, my bad.
>
>>> We have, at this moment, 3 versions of X11 around - X.org's, the
>>> fdo's kdrive one, and xfree86 - now isn't it a waste of valuable
>>> energy and human resources? This fragmentation of efforts is what
>>> leads to a situation in which there are no real alternatives to
>>> AutoCAD, ArchiCAD or 3DMax on the free side of the software world
>>
>> I just want to reemphasize this statement, because it's beautiful.
>
> You are hillarious :) Maybe you will become the Debian court jester?
>
> marek
>
Marek, I don't have any opinion IRT you personally, but this mail
exchange was disrespectful, and in a non-called-for way. Only from your
side.
1. IANADD (wannabe yet) but what makes me be a Debian user since slink
is the Debian SC punchline: Free Software. Free as in RMS-free, as in
DFSG-free, as in speech. I don't want, don't need no stinking
AutoCAD.
If (and it has happened) I need a CAD, I go with the free ones, and
implement whatever I miss or need at the moment from AutoCAD. There
are always alternatives, and the free alternatives are better to
society and to me. Non-negotiable. If Debian ditches the Free
Software concept, then it's time to me to ditch Debian. Finito.
2. He is right, you know, IRT encouraging free alternatives. Qt,
remember? Not including it, not including KDE made both a free
alternative be developed (project Harmony) /and/ made Trolltech
backpedal and GPL the libraries.
GNU, Linux, and Debian by extension, were created this way: I need a
Unixy OS. I can't pay USD5k for a Unixy OS; but wait; Ritchie and
Thompson created the real thing in a relatively short time... why
can't we?
2. (a) and BTW, if you tell me Harmony did not fly, I'll answer: why
should it? Trolltech GPL'd Qt, and its /raison/ /d'etre/ disappeared.
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/gnome-history.html
3. IRT the P&P stuff: ok, here JW could have passed a little bit, but
not a lot. As a Debian user, I expect from you as a DD to uphold the
SC and abide the DFSG. As a consumer/citizen. You (Debian Project)
said so in your web site.
I have full reasons to believe it. And, as I said in (1), if I don't
get what I want from Debian, I'll try to get it somewhere else.
Even if IANAL and IANADD, being a paralegal /and/ a software
developer I do my best to dedicate part of my time and mind to d-d@
and to d-l@. I intend to allocate a larger part of my time to be a
DD... and, if I make it, I know /I/ will uphold the SC and abide the
DFSG.
This is just integrity; I'll do so until we change what is in
http://www.debian.org/ to other -- possibly evil -- stuff (when I'll
probably leave)
So, answering your question, yeah, every single Debian user will be
the judge of your upholding the SC and abiding the DFSG. Including me
and JW. I think you have to cope with it.
4. Your "repeated paragraph" argument (IRT fragmentation of efforts)
does not hold water, either: the same could be said about Word,
WordPerfect, AmiPro. Why doesn't Microsoft, Corel, and Lotus unite
their teams and make only one word processor? Sun and the OOo
developers could join, too...
Duh!* The trivial answer: no two software products have the same
"vision", the same conceptual approach, the same technical or
implementation approach, ... They are not the same! XFree, Xorg,
FDo,... they share a lot of code, but they are still not the same!
In fact, those very three projects you mentioned share more code and
had less development redundancy than the three word processors I
mentioned. They were, as a set, better to the macro-economy of
software-making (less resources wasted, more diverse results
achieved)
Just to make my point clear: there are no free alternatives to
AutoCAD and the others you mentioned because, at the present moment:
(a) no free-software-only user needed it; or (b) if somebody really
needed it, said person or entity is in the works of implementing what
it needs (it's not instantaneous, you know: if it was, project
Harmony would have disintegrated Qt)
Ah, and one more point: some people/entities are not
free-software-only just for philosophical reasons. Some, p.ex.
third-world-govments (-: hehe :-), non-profit shops, foreign
non-USofA-friendly govments, have other many reasons to accept
free-software-only.
Have in mind I am disagreeing with you, but not bashing you. I don't see
reason for you to call me or anyone else a clown. Even the Duh!, in #4,
paragraph 2, is retorical and directed to myself, not to you.
--
my very best regards, Humberto Massa
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