Re: [all candidates] Debian as an FSF Free Software Distribution
Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org>
> On 14/03/13 at 12:21 -0400, Paul Tagliamonte wrote:
> > What work will you be doing to continue Zach's efforts to negotiate with
> > the FSF over Debian's status as a Free Software Distribution?
Actually, the FSF refers to "Free System Distributions" not "Free
Software Distributions". I think we'd say they contain non-free
software, whereas FSF say they contain non-software because it regards
only programs as software, so it's OK to forbid users editing the
multiple included copies of the GNU Manifesto.
[...]
> A great achievement would already be to agree with the FSF on a detailed
> list of disagreements. Some easy bugs are likely to be fixed in the
> process, but I'm not convinced that we should go much further, and
> negociate/compromise /make concessions with the FSF.
That would be useful. I've been trying to clarify about debian in
some discussions with a FSF-supporting group near some of our businesses:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsuk-manchester/2013-02/msg00027.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsuk-manchester/2013-03/msg00002.html
and maybe some other threads in that time - and you may like to skip
the subthread where I get cross about trisquel's discrimination and
restart at http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsuk-manchester/2013-02/msg00058.html
But it still feels like trying to fit a carpet in a room where people
are moving the walls: as soon as you push down one edge, a wall is
moved, another edge pops up and is called unacceptably ugly!
Meanwhile, if you point out that some other carpet doesn't fit either,
that wall is moved back to accommodate it or the other carpet gets
trimmed.
If the walls were clearly fixed, we could decide whether or not we
want to fit within them. Until we've got some measurements, which we
can't take ourselves because we don't see the walls in the same places
as the FSF, we can't and it's rather frustrating to try.
Hope that explains,
--
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/
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