Re: The "Free" vs. "Non-Free" issue
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 07:45:25PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> On 2004-01-01 15:10:32 +0000 Raul Miller <moth@magenta.com> wrote:
>
> >But please don't demand other people avoid non-free software if you're
> >not willing to solve their problems.
>
> Are the people using the Debian infrastructure to support non-free
> helping to prevent the problems from being solved?
No. Speaking for myself, I maintain a few packages that provide Asian
language support for Xpdf, which are in non-free because they contain
files from the evil Adobe corporation. I do not use the files myself (I
don't know any Asian languages) but I provide them as a service since I
maintain the free parts of Xpdf too.
If I were not spending time on those non-free packages, I would not be
spending time on equivalent free software. I have no need for them and I
don't have the skills/knowledge to create them.
So removing non-free would not improve free and would make Debian less
usable to Japanese, Korean and Chinese users.
For what benefit? Andrew Suffield isn't interested in discussing that.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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