A plea for some peace
I happen to support the General Resolution which is the subject of
this week's flame war. But leaving that aside, the question of this
General Resolution is less important than the question of Debian
itself.
Debian is a great thing, a wonderful thing. All of us who work on it
may have different reasons for doing so, some because of the
excellence of the distribution, others because of its commitment to
free software, others because of the collaborative nature of its
development, others because it's kewl.
Some people feel that this General Resolution would improve Debian,
and others think it would harm Debian; generally the differences
relate to what an individual thinks is most wonderful about Debian.
For those who prize its great number of well integrated packages, any
reduction in the number of packages is a detriment. For those who
prize its commitment to free software, ending the "non-free"
compromise is seen as an asset.
But regardless of which way this vote goes, I am firmly convinced that
the resulting Debian will *still* be the coolest distribution around.
If the harmful things happen from dropping non-free that some think
will happen, it would still be the case that Debian has more packages
than anyone else, and still be better than Red Hat or Slackware or
SuSE or any of the other distributions we think we are better than.
Some people have started to talk like if they don't get their way on
this vote they will pick up and leave. That's distressing. I
certainly hope they don't do so. The "pick up your toys and go home"
philosophy has been to the serious detriment of the various BSD camps,
and I hope it doesn't infect us here.
I for one will continue to be interested in Debian and do what I can
to make it stay the fabulous success it is. No matter what happens on
this vote. So by all means, discuss, argue, fight, and vote.
But don't threaten to leave if you don't get what you want; that
subverts the whole point of having collaborative development and a
democratic approach to making these kinds of political decisions.
Whatever happens in the vote, it isn't worth trying to break up Debian
just because it isn't exactly what you want it to be. This applies
equally to supporters as to opponents of the resolution.
Thomas
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