Re: Draft new DFSG
Hi,
>>"Joey" == Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> writes:
Joey> * because it is of very low quality, and there is already a far superior
Joey> alternative that is also free
Joey> * because it implements something inherently unsecure, or is written in such
Joey> an insecure manner that fixing it would require a rewrite
Joey> * because it is 5 gb in size and will only be used by a few hundred people
Joey> on earth.
None of these reasons make them non free software. And that is
what the dfsg is folks. I shall spell it out:
The DEBIAN FREE SOFTWARE GUIDELINES. ``FREE''. Bah. None fo
the reasons cited above make the software less free.
Joey> All of these seem valid to me. The fact is, no-one in their
Joey> right mind would wnat to maintain such packages for debian, so
Joey> they never get into the distibution in the first place. All
Joey> free software is *not* in debian, and it never will be.
And none of them need a modification of the DFSG to not be in
Debian. Buggy and unsafe packages may still go in experimental, if
some developer is willing to play with stuff (new versions of Gnus
tend to be hairy).
As you said, not all DFSG free software is in Debian, and
there shall never be There is no reason, though, to dilute the DFSG
saying that anything that strikes the fancy of Debian developers
shall be deemed non-fere.
Introducing whimsy into the DFSG is one of the nastiest ways
to making the DFSG irrelevant to most people. (Why should I place any
importance to a label when it merely represents the whimsy of a group
of wacky computer geeks?. Freeness counts. Whimsy does not). I think
I see this as an attack on the free software community, this dilution
of the DFSG.
manoj
--
"If that man in the PTL is such a healer, why can't he make his
wife's hairdo go down?" Robin Williams
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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