** On Jun 09, John Goerzen scribbled: > grendel@vip.net.pl (Marek Habersack) writes: > > > > 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 > > I feel compelled to point out here for the umpteenth time that > non-free software is not part of the distribution, has never been, and > no doubt never will be. Your original resolution made a quite contrary impression on me and, probably, some other people here. It sounded like you wanted to *clean* Debian from the non-free trash. But, considering non-free, is *not* a part of the distribution, the problem ceases to exist. > > 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 > > Nobody is removing software from beneath the users. Even my > resolution states that we still support users that choose to use > non-free software. I don't want to add more fuel to this fire, but as many before me stated - it is impossible to support software which has been expelled from the Debian infrastructure - one excludes the other. > > 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 > > So they use apt to get it, just like they do now. They have to > download it now anyway, as it's not part of the distribution. That wasn't clear when you posted your original GR. I suggest to better express your thoughts for the next time having in mind the ugly flamewar that resulted from your original posting. > > 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 > > Hiding the truth from people is not necessarily ethical, and one can Hiding? Nobody would deny the non-free software exists. The free software simply wouldn't acknowledge its existence by suggesting its installation. The existence of the non-free software should be *mentioned* in Debian documentation as an existing *possibility* and not as advice to *use* it. In my book it would simply mean that we acknowledge the existence of the software (denying it would be *hiding the truth*), we *do not* advise it to be used on the user's machine, but we *do* provide the latter with the necessary infrastructure to obtain the software if so the user desires. Where's hiding the truth in that picture? > make the case that it is not ethical even as a means to an ethical > end, which is itself of questionable ethics. Better is to avoid that > question and to instead not engage in activities that are in support > of non-free software. Nobody said that. I this particular case, IMO, *engaging in activities* would be to sit down and create free software that can fully replace and outperform its non-free counterpart. It has been done in many cases, as Craig poited out - mutt vs. pine, postfix vs. qmail - but, unfortunately, many pieces of non-free software (povray, netscape, JDK and probably many more) are a) required part of many systems, b) currently not replacable by any free software. You suggested Mozilla to replace Netscape - but it's not ready yet. Proposing some resolution not based on facts isn't quite honest, wouldn't you say? When we have all the software to replace *all* the non-free one, then we have the moral right to say to our users: "There is no non-free software that couldn't be replaced with our fully free alternatives" and give them a full list of what they need. Only *then* one can file resolutions like yours to remove the non-free part from the Debian *infrastructure*. > > 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... > > I find it horrid that Debian developers are suggesting that having > Debian support only Free Software is a fanatic act! Debian *started* > like this and went that way for some time. No, please, don't twist my words. I didn't call removal of the non-free software a fanatic act. I merely stated that the way it is done bears symptoms of being a fanatic act without a trace of will to agree to some kind of compromise *facing the facts* of the current status quo regarding the availability (and usability) of the software in question. regards, marek
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