Re: LCC and blobs
On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 11:50:44AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> Brian Nelson <pyro@debian.org> writes:
>
> > It's a completely inconsistent and arbitrary policy.
>
> It's hardly that. We distribute only free software, that's our rule.
I thought the post
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/10/msg00126.html
demonstrated quite well why the policy is arbitrary.
> The rest, as you say, is for the manufacturer and the user to work
> out, but we disvalue non-free software, and so we don't distribute it
> in main. (And packages which require it go into contrib.)
>
> You only see it as inconsistent because you think the relevant
> consideration is "do we support this hardware", and you don't care how
> we support it. Most of us *do* care; we support it provided we can do
> so without distributing non-free software, because Debian is 100% Free
> Software. Things we cannot support with free software we do not
> support. This is not an inconsistent policy; this is the core of what
> Debian stands for.
It's software either way. The difference is in how the manufacturer
ships it to you. Why should that make a difference to Debian?
> To say it is arbitrary is worse, because that insults the motives of
> the people who disagree with you.
There's a time and a place for that I think.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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