Re: NEW handling: About rejects, and kernels

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org> writes:

> Frankly I can't spot the flaw in this approach. In general we want to
> distribute all useful bitstreams (programs, documentation and firmware) 
> in Debian. However we are forced to disqualify the ones that don't have
> adequate freedoms. It's a subtractive process. We disqualify licenses
> that don't provide adequate freedom, rather than just allowing the ones
> with maximum freedom.

Right.  So the definition of "adequate freedom" is the DFSG.  What is
lacking is an explanation for why we shouldn't apply the DFSG to
everything, and what we should apply instead of the DFSG to those
other things.

One reason for the DFSG's modifiability and source requirements is to
preserve our ability to fix things.  I see no reason why we shouldn't
insist on that for firmware just as we do for openoffice.org.

Thomas