Re: Debian Free Software (FSF) or Open Source? (was Re; non-cd...)
On Sun, Jun 28, 1998 at 12:31:58AM -0400, Kevin Atkinson wrote:
>
> I think that Debian should keep that guideline to identify to people
> what is truly free but should adopt a slightly less strict guideline to
> be able to include stuff like Qt, KDE and Mysql into the official
> distributions.
What? You certainly don't get the point. If we would do that, there would be
no goal to achieve, no battle to fight, no work to be done. We had no
possibility to motivate people releasing free software. The whole free
software movement would be just another windows share ware lie.
Do you want that?
If we would not stick to the dfsg so close, there probably would not be a
free modzilla source. Think about it.
> > The dfsg is the only thing that ensures that Debian is freely available to
> > everyone (and even more).
>
> Yes it does. But unfortunately it limits what can go in it. Stuff that
> is not trully-free but free-enough does not go in it when it goes into
> almost every other distribution.
It limits what can go in, this is not unfortunate, but intentionally. Stuff
that is not truely free but redistributable is in non-free. We work on it,
and it is packaged with high quality, but we can't offer it in the official
distribution and won't do so. You are free to download it from the ftp site.
This is the maximum service we can offer. Some CD vendors will offer more.
They are welcome. We are not non-free unfriendly, but we dopn't compromise
our goals and principles.
> > The quality will be ensured by us developers.
>
> Please elaborate.
We don't have the dfsg for fun --- it is the only way we can offer you a
stable distribution. Do you have *any* idea of the work done by maintainers,
of the countless patches applied and the thousands bug fixes done. Do you
know the bug tracking system? This would all be impossible with Qt, Motif
etc.
We have KDE in contrib, which is shipped with the mian distribution on the
official CD rom. Again --- this is service to maximum extend.
> As I see it:
>
> FSF) Develope high quality free software.
>
> Open Source) Convince commercial organizations that free software is
> high quality stuff.
Yes. And we don't work for world domination. We are doing the former, not
necessarily the latter. Sorry, if it is not your goal.
Marcus
--
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