Re: Clarifications
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
> 4. Debian was created with the cause of creating a free operating
> system. So says our Constitution. Distributing non-free software
> falls outside that definition, and the spirit of our organization.
I'd *thought* that the spirit of the organisation was summed up by
the Social Contract as it now stands. What you're suggesting flies
utterly in the face of s4, which says that not only "Free Software",
but "Our Users" are the priorities.
The proposal to remove non-free from Debian (and hence, AIUI, from
the normal archive) will have a deleterious effect on the users, and
on the people who are going to have to maintain the separate non-free
archive (<scaremongering>and doubtless ultimately contrib</scaremongering>).
> 5. Not distributing non-free software does not mean that non-free
> software cannot be easily used in Debian.
Debian's apt-get is complicit in making software a LOT easier to discover
and install. That is also makes non-free software a lot easier to install
seems to have caused quite a few ructions.
> 8. This proposal does not break any promises or goals laid out in the
> Social Contract. It does only alter the mechanics by which they are
> carried out.
Except Section 4, that thing about the Users.
"We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free-software
community. We will place their interests first in our priorities."
Oh look! It wasn't "Our Users" and "Free Software". It was "our users and
the free software *community*" [my emphasis]. The proposed change injures
the interests both of the users (through having a more difficult system
to use) and those of the free software community, which will have to live
with an impoverished Debian system and the political flak from this
decision.
The changes you propose make s5 logically inconsistent with s4 under my
interpretation.
> 10. The Social Contract is not intended to be, nor can it be,
> immutable.
I don't believe it was intended to be easily and quickly mutable, either,
and even if that *was* the the intention of the author(s), it's not how
users interpret the document.
I'm just a Debian user, not a developer. Apologies for any inaccuracies
and misunderstandings which I may have allowed to creep in.
Mk
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