Re: "keep non-free" proposal

[Gustavo Noronha Silva <kov@debian.org>]

Em Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:07:14 -0500, Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> escreveu:

> You've stated that you disagree with my intended interpretation of the SC.
> I believe the concept in question is that we're promising to distribute
> in 100% free form software systems which have been in 100% free form.

That may be what we're promising now, but what I would like to see
the social contract state is that we are not going to distribute or promote
non-free software or software which is dependent on non-free software.

That means we're going to remove contrib and non-free sections from
the FTP servers (interested parties can create a separate association
to maintain packages of stuff they like in non-free.org).

That means also that we are not going to adopt or promote a non-free
installer or any kind of non-free "add-ons" for our system.

That does not mean we're going to work proactively in making it impossible
to use non-free stuff in the system we distribute, or that we are not going
to worry about stuff that is vital to binary-only non-free stuff, like binary-level
compatibility with other major players, like red hat, by following the LSB.

What Anthony Towns wanted to express in one of his messages[0], I
believe, was that we're probably missing the point here. What is it that
we're trying to solve on the social contract?

If we want to decide on the drop of non-free and contrib from the FTP
server and the modification of the 5th clause to simply state that we,
although not distributing non-free stuff ourselves, will work on 
maintaining the technical base working for people who need to install
such things.

That's the view I would like to see represented in a proposal. It's not
about 'not making free stuff non-free' at all.

[]s!

[0]: <20040128062555.GB4300@azure.humbug.org.au>

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