On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 03:04:39PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig scribbled:
[snip]
> > Joe, get a grip. Face the facts - the driver was removed _despite_ the fact
> > that there was a patch that was removing the "non-free" part of the driver.
> > That's totally wrong _and_ it breaks the SC.
>
> I mostly agree. It is not "totally wrong"; totally wrong would be
> leaving the driver, complete with non-free undistributable firmware in
> main forever. But it is far from an idea solution.
Glad we agree.
> > And stop accusing me when you
> > have no basis for the accusations, it is becoming annoying.
>
> You said that people who remove stuff from Debian when no free
> alternatives exist are unreliable. The contrapositive of that is,
> reliable people do not remove non-free stuff from Debian.
That's a B&W logic at work. There are the shades of gray between that. And
you are, again, twisting my words. I said that "people who remove software
WITHOUT providing a worthy alternative". It's a pretty precise statement,
you know.
> That's clearly bullshit. Reliable people do what they agreed to do, one
Yes, your above assesment is.
> of which (in the case of Debian) is to only upload stuff that meets the
> DFSG to main.
So the correct solution would be to move the software to non-free and not
remove it from main. That's the difference between extremism and compromise
you seem to fail to notice.
> You also said that you would not object to someone including e.g.
> AutoCAD in Debian if we got permission. You didn't qualify this with
I wouldn't.
> "and if the DFSG was modified". You even went so far as to again call
why would I? We have non-free.
> those who would oppose this unreliable. Now, I don't consider myself
Let me quote the SC again, my friend:
Works that do not meet our free software standards
We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that do not
conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created "contrib"
and "non-free" areas in our archive for these works.
By _removing_ the non-free software you break the SC. So if AutoCAD was
uploaded to non-free, it would be fine by the code of the SC. And SC is
superior to DFSG, as stated in the point 4 of SC (the fragment about our
users being the priority).
> unreliable, but I sure as hell don't want to see an enormous piece of
> non-free software (in *every* sense of the word) in Debian.
You can be even more sure YOU don't want to see it. But then I seriously
doubt you understand the SC. You don't matter here, the users matter - they
take precedence of you and your opinions (and mine, too, of course).
> I didn't promise Debian would remain 100% free software, except for
> programs that someone really really wants.
AutoCAD would probably be one of those programs, rest assured.
> > > But realize that by this logic ("just data"), I can upload any m68k
> > > program to the x86 archive, because it's not really software. Does that
> > > make sense?
> > You're twisting the logic. m68k program can be executed on the m68k version
> > of the Debian system (even on the x86 one, by using an emulator), the
> > firmware cannot be executed on any Debian system, it is relevant only to the
> > hardware in question and it is treated (even stored) as data on that Debian
> > system. You can twist the logic all you want, though. By that token, I
> > suppose you will say that a word document is a "proprietary software", not
> > "just data" since it can contain, gross, VB code. Go figure.
>
> This debate has happened dozens of times before over the past few years.
> I have no wish to have it again. Please go read the -legal archives, and
> try to rebut the points there.
If you have no wish to have it again, then DO not fucking start it. A little
bit of consequence in actions, my friend. And I have better things to do
than reading the archives of debian-legal.
marek
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