Re: Seconded, sponsored. (was Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free)

[tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:

> in any case, you screwed up. you sprung the trap way too soon, you have
> to maintain the tone of innocent enquiry until there is no possibility
> of escape. try practicing on someone dumb.

This is an insult with no value.  I'm not trying to "trap" anyone, I'm
trying to understand the issues and further develop my opinions
through interchange with others.  I have learned much from other
people in this discussion, on both sides, and I'm sorry you seem to
think the discussion is some kind of fraud.

> look, if they can't read what's in front of them then they're never
> going to learn. give it up as a lost cause....you're already way too far
> into the land of diminishing returns.

It isn't in front of them.  That's the problem.  I'm proposing putting
it in front of them somehow.

> the context is that some people want to hide the fact that free software
> exists, and believe that they can achieve that goal by removing the
> non-free section from debian archives.

There may be people who have this goal.  I don't.  I would be happy to
see Debian tell people where they can get various important non-free
software packages and so forth if it would help them.  

I want to make sure that Debian users understand that Debian includes
only free software.  There is no non-free software in Debian, but we
do a piss poor job of making sure people know that, and in fact we do
several things that encourage people to have the wrong opinions.

> it won't work.  it can't work.

We can't make sure everyone gets the point, but given that Debian
*developers* on this list have made wording mistakes which would imply
that non-free is part of Debian, the current method is clearly not
good at making sure users know what is and is not Debian.  If those
poeple make the same wording mistakes in other forums, we can be sure
that it contributes to user misunderstanding.

It seems to me that you want to pretend that non-free is part of
Debian.