Re: Bug#353277: ndiswrapper in main
On 3/1/06, Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> wrote:
> So you responded to my question out of its context... which was trimmed
> down due to the 2 subsequent answers. :-/
Ok. And I think a part of the problem has been inexact expression,
where assumptions are important in understanding what a
person meant.
> The real question was "What is the difference for a package if it enables
> the user to make use of his own software or his own hardware (whether free
> or non-fee) ?"
I don't think that's the real question in the context of ndiswrapper:
To my knowledge, no one is writing their own software to use with
ndiswrapper.
Then again, maybe there's some ambiguity about what you mean
by "his own software"? If a person does not own copyright on a
piece of software, I think that that software is not "his own", though
the instance -- the copy -- might be.
This might seem like an overly narrow distinction, but it's exactly
the sort of distinction that copyright law is based on. And, since
we're engaged in making copies of software, and distributing
those copies, this is a critically important question for us.
Hardware, on the other hand, is out of scope for us.
We've made promises in the social contract about what we will do
in the context of making free software depend on other software.
We haven't made any promises about making free software
depend on hardware.
Does this make sense to you?
> I think both packages enable the user to use "something he has" (whether
> software or hardware) and that it doesn't make much sense to treat them
> differently when both are DFSG free.
What you said here does not make sense to me. I have never encountered
a piece of hardware which satisfies the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
So I can't think of any reasonable way to construct a specific example of
the case you're talking about that you say doesn't make much sense.
So I can easily agree that "it doesn't make much sense", but I think you're
trying to suggest something else would make sense, that doesn't make
sense to me either.
> I hope the confusion is solved now. :-)
I'm still not sure if the problem is that I don't understand some relevant
point of yours or if the problem is that you don't understand some
relevant point of mine.
Maybe I should have instead said "We can't distribute any hardware:
in main, contrib, or non-free"?
--
Raul
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