Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free
On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 01:04:10PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote:
> On 08-Jun-00, 07:46 (CDT), Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Debian is about building a _community_. The DFSG outlines the
> > requirements software must meet to be part of that community.
>
> Debian is also about building a superior Linux distribution and
> providing great tools to our users. Some tools are in non-free for what
> are (in my mind, at least), relatively minor violations of the DFSG.
> For example, does distribution of a program that forbids commercial
> distribution *really* hurt the free software community? Yes, it would be
> better if that restriction were removed, but it's a lot different than
> forbidding modification, or shareware.
It hurts the free software community because we can't put it on our
CDs which are an important way of getting our software to those not
lucky enough to have high-bandwidth internet links.
It hurts the free software community because the code can't be
used/adapted into other programs with a license which allows
commercial distribution.
No, it doesn't hurt the free software community as much as commercial
software, but it hurts it.
Jules
--
Jules Bean | Any sufficiently advanced
jules@{debian.org,jellybean.co.uk} | technology is indistinguishable
jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | from a perl script
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