The political decision about non-free (Was: Re: Vote for April 1st?)
Hi,
This voting is about a political decision. The technical changes implied
by removing or not non-free support aren't big.
There are four major focuses on this issue:
1 - The GFDL imcompability with DFSG.
2 - The support for hardware with closed specs (i.e. nvidia)
3 - The support for non-free file types (i.e. gif)
4 - Non-free software just because it's non-free.
I understand the decision of dropping the support for non-free section
as a political choice of making pressure (like the "pressure groups" (i
don't know if this is the correct translation) described by Gramsci) on
the focuses described above. That's completely normal in a group like
Debian. The question is:
Does Debian have the strength to take a fight like that? I think that
for points 1 and 4 it has, but I'm not sure about points 2 and 3.
Voting for dropping or maintaining the support for non-free is assuming
that Debian has or has not the political strength to take this fight.
Considering that we never can see how strong a group is, that's all
about feeling (See the GNU's history as a lesson).
daniel
Em Seg, 2004-03-08 às 13:12, John Goerzen escreveu:
> On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:41PM +0100, Martin Albert wrote:
> > All DD!
> >
> > I really couldn't believe that i had actually read this:
>
> One question I have for you is: where were you the past several months
> when this was being discussed? You should have no reason to be shocked.
>
> > I can't imagine how any honest DD might ever seriously think of asking
> > me to give up the best you can get, ferociously destroying what it is:
>
> Well let me explain it then.
>
> First, the Debian operating system does not contain non-free. It is not
> distributed on our CDs. It is not part of our distribution. The Debian
> distribution itself would not be modified in any way by this proposal.
>
> At the same time, Debian is a Free Software project. We care about the
> free speech benefits of free software, the value of the knowledge it
> spreads to people, and the empowerment it gives them. Non-free does not
> bring with it these benefits. It is, really, the antithesis to Debian.
>
> > - a fully working solution,
>
> That is demonstrably false. Non-free is in a sad shape on many non-i386
> platforms. Packages there have known security holes that are not fixed
> because we either *can't* due to legal reasons or lack of source code,
> or aren't fixed because of indifference. I have no expectation that a
> random package out of non-free will actually work on my Alpha or PowerPC
> machine, and not much more that it will actually work on my i386
> machine.
>
> > - *THE OS Onestop* that we proudly offer as our work, as The source of
> > reliability - especially for users with bad / expensive connectivity.
>
> I don't know what an "os onestop" is. The Debian OS does not contain
> non-free, and neither do our CD images, so I have no idea what you're
> talking about here.
>
> > - the debian archive that i work for to run my computers
>
> I don't see why removing non-free is "ferociously destroying" the Debian
> archive; if anything, it would help our mirrors a bit by freeing up some
> space... but I think the space requirements are not that big, so it
> likely will make little difference to the archive at all.
>
> > - our Debian Developers' Free! work space to hold what we're working on
>
> Again I don't really know what you're talking about. Are you asserting
> that Debian should be in the business of providing space and bandwidth
> to anything developers happen to be working on, whether or not it is
> Free or of any interest to Debian?
>
> > - a repository of assorted documentation.
>
> ... which, if it can't be modified to match the actual state of things,
> is of questionable value. Plus, sarge at least will contain GFDL docs
> and there is hope that a compromise could be reached with GNU on that.
>
> > I seriously demand (and just spent another night debugging for it) that
> > Debian will be all that for me, any DD, any User.
>
> I don't think that demands will be all that useful. Debian is, after
> all, a volunteer organization.
>
> > (We shift valuable packages between archives - ok, as long as they are
> > apt-getable with all the quality we get from our dds and archive).
> > (Personally, as an artist working with media, i neither could nor would
> > i want to miss some hardly non-free software that i apt-get daily!)
>
> Nothing will stop you from using the non-free software on your machine
> already. Nothing will stop others from setting up a non-free
> repository. Nothing will stop you from using that non-free repository.
>
> > Changing the Social Contract the proposed way would actually make it
> > asocial! The gap between online users and dial-ins widens enough
> > without Debian taking over 750 valuable packages away from people that
> > experience hardness on a daily basis, that online users can't imagine.
>
> Nobody is going to people's hard drives and running dpkg --purge on
> those packages. Also, .deb is no magic potion that is easier to
> download than a tarball. In fact, source distributions in tar.bz2
> format are often smaller than the generated binary .debs.
>
> > I maintain _The Best_ atari emu you can get: atari800, contrib, because
> > it needs some ROM images, that nobody _can_ make free as there is no
> > one left who owns their copyrights who could and would care for.
>
> Presumably somebody that wanted to could write their own ROM for it.
>
> > Debian without 'apt-get install atari800' - no way, that this could ever
> > be the OS of my choice! I would be ashamed to meet anyone wary!
>
> Uhm, seriously now, I think plenty of people would say that an OS is
> plenty valuable even without an atari emulator of good quality. And, in
> fact, since it is in non-free, the Debian OS does not contain it. Many
> quality operating systems do not ship with atari800.
>
> That is a terribly weak argument on your part.
>
> -- John
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