** On Jun 07, Branden Robinson scribbled: > On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 01:30:22PM +0200, Miros/law `Jubal' Baran wrote: > > This thread costs me about 35 minuts of reading and the decision for > > not to use Debian on my servers [which I had in mind] if this > > resolution would effect in changes to the Social Contract; mostly > > because I need to use java and some other non-free. > > > PS. Being not a developer I can't formally object to this resolution > > :-( > > A good thing, because you clearly don't understand the resolution. > > This resolution will do NOTHING to prevent users from downloading, using, > compiling from source (if available), modifying, etc. non-free software. > > It is a largely technical proposal with some alterations to the Social > Contract to clear up some muddy language and terminate a compromise that > was made years ago for pragmatic reasons. As much as I agree with the idea of getting rid of the non-free software from the Debian distribution I also think it should be done in a most reasonable way. Ripping it from beneath of the (potential) users would make no good to the distribution. After all the *users* is what justifies the existence of Debian - whether we like it or not. You're perfectly right - nobody will prevent the users from downloading, using, compiling non-free software but, unfortunately, even in the Linux world the users are becoming to belong to the same category what Winblows lusers - "I wanna have this piece of software, I don't wanna download, compile, install it all on my own and read all the damned docs on how to integrate it with Debian". And that's the whole problem. From the moral point of view, IMO, it would be sufficient if the non-free software wasn't a) suggested by free software, b) advised to be installed by any official Debian documentation. It most definitely *should* be available for anyone out there in a packaged form ready to be easily installed into an, otherwise free, Debian system. It's a matter of sane compromise. Bear in mind that 95% of Debian users won't be able to create deb's for their software, won't even be able to plug the software neatly into the existing system and, saddly, much software requires serious tweaking to fit into Debian (or any other distro for that matter) - it has to comply with the policy used by the distribution, has to place software in specified places etc. etc. You, I (although I'm not an official Debian developer - which I regret) and all the people here can package the above software so that it fits Debian, but what about the others? Let us not be fanatics because fanatism is a foe to the reason... marek
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