On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 12:54:52AM -0500, Adam Heath wrote: > > No it does not. Read the social contract. Contrib is not part of the > > Debian system. > > So contrib is not part of debian like non-free is not part of debian. Let's > remove that then. > > Let's remove sid while we are at it, as that is not part of debian. > > Let's remove unstable, as that hasn't been released yet, so it not part of > debian. > > Where do we stop with the purging? Let's continue on with the book burning. Is this a parody, or do you actually believe that a naked slippery-slope fallacy is a substitute logical arguments? > Contrib depends on things outside of debian. This implies non-freeness. No it doesn't. Debian hasn't packaged every piece of free software in the world. (Whether contrib is a proper place for free software that depends on unpackaged free software is an issue I leave open.) > > While it is true that my primary home platform is Alpha, this does not > > mean that I am without experience on x86 architectures. Nor does it > > in any way lessen my ability to speak about issues of Free Software. > > I didn't mean to say that alpha was your only system. I said primary. RMS > doesn't use non-free software(I'm almost certain about that). Yet, how many > times has RMS been ignored in public circles because of his opinions on > non-free software? And this has what to do with anything? RMS doesn't use non-free software, therefore his opinions about it have been ignored in public circles? John uses the x86 architecture, therefore his opinions about it should be ignored in public circles? Non sequitur. > > If you see fit to shoot the messenger on the basis of his chosen > > platform, let me instead point out that people like me are obvious > > proof that life without large portions of non-free is not only easily > > doable, but has been done for some-time. > > Point. But think of what you COULD accomplish with non-free software? :) You can acquire more wealth through theft than employment; you can pick up more chicks if you go to the gym and buff up; you can get more work done if you don't spend time in silly flamewars on mailing lists. Arguing potentialities like this pointless. > Embrace, extend, pummel into the ground. > > Give the incoming flood of new users familiar software. Let them compare it > to free software. Improve the free software. They will eventually switch. Uh, guess what? A person who relies on Debian to learn about NON-free software is seriously hampering their ability to conduct a well-informed analysis. This is the case regardless of whether John's proposal is implemented or not, since there is so much non-free software we can't distribute at all. To evaluate the worth/utility of non-free software based solely on what we offer in our non-free area is to greatly handicap non-free software in one's assessment relative to free software. > No, I don't advocate abandonment. But debian needs to grow, and grow without > bounds(Jason, don't say anything about the archive size, please). Having > non-free software allows us to get a foot in the door, after which we can > drown out the enemy(the suit(s) wanting to pay for software). There are all kinds of things we could do to get a foot in the door with suits. Our existing level of non-free support isn't even a very good one. I'll bet we'd do much better with any of the following: prune down our distribution radically and enforce limitations on what goes in based upon size/popularity/bug-count, probably to only 1 CD; release more often; somehow contract with a commercial support firm. There exist perfectly good reasons not to do any of these things--they're not what Debian is about. Likewise, non-free software is not really what Debian is about. > > Perhaps that was the case when it was packaged. Today, non-free is > > basically cruft. > > Proof is the burden of the accuser, imho. My opinion (likely not shared by many) is that whether the stuff in non-free is cruft or not is irrelevant. -- G. Branden Robinson | We either learn from history or, Debian GNU/Linux | uh, well, something bad will happen. branden@ecn.purdue.edu | -- Bob Church roger.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
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