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An ammendment (Re: Formal CFV: General Resolution to Abolish Non-Free)



On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 11:03:33PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> DEBIAN GENERAL RESOLUTION
> Proposed by: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>

I wish to propose an ammendment to the proposed resolution as follows.

The text of the resolution should be replaced with a call for the
developers to resolve that:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  1) the Debian project continues to acknowledge the utility of providing
     non-free software for it users.

  2) the Debian project also acknowledges that some developers may be
     unwilling or unable to explicitly work on non-free software, and
     holds that this is not and should not be detrimental to their work
     on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, or their contribution to the
     Debian project.

  3) the Debian project considers equating the importance of the "contrib"
     and "non-free" areas described in the Social Contract with the
     official Debian GNU/Linux distribution inappropriate.

  4) noting that the Debian project already distributes various other
     collections of unofficial packages, the project endorses a move to
     specifically collect the various other add-on components such as
     "experimental", "orphaned", "non-free" and "contrib" and to clearly
     separate these from the "main" collection.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The intention of this ammendment is to provide a means for developers to
offer their support of the existing social contract while acknowledging
that the current situation does indeed give somewhat too much credibility.

This is obviously something of a compromise position, and as such it is
intended to be a resolution that can be agreed to even without agreeing
that it's the better possibility of those offered.

While the implied technical changes in item (4) should not have any
significant negative consequences, they may be implemented in a way that
will provide some significant benefits: tying orphaned and experimental to
a particular release may make some software more accessible to users who
do not wish to run unstable; and setting up infrastructure for various
add-on components may make it more convenient to host staging areas
that don't quite conform to policy: in order to make Gnome packages
consistent, or to make IPv6 packages usable, or even to distribute
Debianised KDE source.

I imagine this ammendment would be best as a separate option on the
ballot to the original proposal, and as such it will require five seconds.

Respectfully submitted,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG encrypted mail preferred.

  ``We reject: kings, presidents, and voting.
                 We believe in: rough consensus and working code.''
                                      -- Dave Clark

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