Re: Non-Free proposal -- yet another draft
On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 08:23:57AM -0600, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Raul. This is a very different proposal that the ones that were
> > discussed in the past, and one that merely keeps non-free, without
> > putting any more compulsive engagement to work on making every single
> > piece of non-free software obsolet.
>
> I've gone through what seems like several dozen proposals, so there are
> going to be differences.
>
> > Could you provide some rationale as to why you choose to modify your
> > previous proposals until this point, and what does this really win us
> > over the status quo ?
>
> The fundamental rationale is described in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg01835.html
>
> However, I received some criticism -- perhaps valid -- that "the Debian
> system" was itself too ambiguous to stand by itself. Also, since I
> needed an extra sentence to associate that with main, it seemed simpler
> to just use "Debian Main" as the noun phrase.
I have to admit that I don't like the name 'Debian Main' a lot. The
social contract should be pretty much self-contained and make sense to
people not knowing about the implementation. They would not know that
'main' is the directory all the Free stuff is lying around, and wonder
'why the name'? Also, I'm not sure what the term 'Main' really means to
native or non-native ears.
It might just sounds strange to my non-native ears though and I cannot
come up with a better phrase right now.
Hmm, perhaps call it 'the Debian System' and clarify on www.debian.org
and in the FAQ that this is main, not non-free? (in case that is your
opinion, too)
> Now, granted, there might be other rationales for dropping non-free.
> However, my belief is that without support from the social contract
> people won't consider those rationales so self-evident that they could
> get away with proposing we change the social contract without also
> stating their rationale.
I did not have enough coffee today to understand that :)
Michael
--
Michael Banck
Debian Developer
mbanck@debian.org
http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html
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