Re: A transition plan to fsf-linux.org
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:50:52PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 04:43:44PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote:
> > That was because of security problems, not because Free alternatives
> > existed (and those alternatives existed *for years*, at least in the
> > case of netscape)
>
> Sure,
"Sure"? You deliberately "forgot" about this point?
> but i am for a more agressive approach to this, this is the content of
> my aborted GR proposal.
As I said, I don't see how we need a GR for this, other than perhaps to
drop non-free packages without the consent of their maintainers. But if
it comes to that, I guess the whole non-free thing is flawed.
> > > Did not many of the 'remove non-free' camp claim that, yes, they used
> > > to use non-free in the past, and no, they didn't think we should
> > > remove non-free 5 years ago, since back then they were using some of
> > > the software in it, for which they did find free replacement today ?
> > > (Not to tell the hypocricy of it all, since they needed non-free back
> > > then, it was ok to keep it, but since now they don't have use of the
> > > software in it, let's get rid of it, not withstanding the fact that
> > > maybe other folk care about not yet liberated packages).
> >
> > I don't remember people say that, could you perhaps come up with quotes?
>
> It was John Groenzen, i think, and you are big enough to grep trough
> your mail archive without needing me to do it for you (at least that is
> what i usually got told here anyway).
Bah. Funnily enough, he already responded to (at least AFAICT) the exact
claim of yours in <[🔎] 20040107142117.GB23640@complete.org> on Jan, 7th:
"No, I advocated removing non-free even while I maintained packages in
it."
I don't think it's so much of a big point, but I don't particularly like
that you make that claim even after being told otherwise (you didn't
reply to his post back then, AFAICT)
> > What baffles me is why you 'keep non-free'ers think that encouraging
> > alternatives would *not* be the status quo?
>
> Because, if the encouraging mets results, this will mean that
> _individual_ packages inside of non-free will be removed as a result of
> the actions resulting from this encouragement.
Again, why were we unable to remove superseded packages in the past? Why
did it have to get to security problems in order to get there?
> But sure, it is never possible to do more than encouragement in a
> volunteer project, and there is no guarantee that it will be followed.
So that basically means that as long as the maintainer refuses to let
the package be removed from non-free, nothing will happen?
Note that I'm talking about packages which got a *different, but
(mostly) equivalent* alternative in main, not about package which
promote to main because of the clarification/modification of their
license.
Michael
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