Re: Clarifications
On Sun, Jun 11, 2000 at 01:46:26AM -0400, James LewisMoss wrote:
> >>>>> On Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:01:21 -0400 (EDT), Stephen Frost <sfrost@mail.snowman.net> said:
>
> Stephen> Ah, so of course there wasn't ever any reason to put
> Stephen> it there
> Stephen> in the first place, it being just 'miscellany'. It couldn't
> Stephen> have been put there to assist our users, of course not. So
> Stephen> therefore our users will not be hurt by it if we remove it.
> Stephen> I hope you realize I'm being sarcastic, and your claim that
> Stephen> it is 'no more than miscellany' is false.
>
> He didn't call the software miscellany. He called the distinction
> between it being served on debian servers vs being served somewhere
> else miscellany.
Which it's not, as has been pointed out by the people who run
all this stuff. I think someone said it would take two months to
replicate the infastructure to move it and not lose functionality.
> False is a pretty strong word when you don't seem to
> understand what Debian is about.
Is this a personal attack?
> It can still be served somewhere else. It's not shipped on Debian CDs
> now. People still have to download it from the net. Where it's
> downloaded from doesn't really matter.
Would you download bind from rootshell.com? Or, more relevantly,
bobssite.org? Debian offers assurances that it will be hard to impossible
to offer elsewhere. (Yes, I know bind isn't in non-free. Now.)
> >> The Debian system does not contain non-free now. How many times
> >> do I have to repeat this? The Debian system does not contain
> >> non-free.
>
> Stephen> How do you define 'system'? I don't know about you,
> Stephen> but when I
> Stephen> last looked http.us.debian.org had non-free on it.
>
> Read please. It's not a part of Debian. Just happens to be on the
> ftp/http sites. It can reside elsewhere.
It doesn't just happen to be on the sites. It's also packaged for
Debian, by Debian maintainers and supported by the bug tracking
system. Whether the Debian 'system' contains non-free, and whether
the Debian 'system' is different from Debian, is a matter of semantics.
> That's kinda what a vote is for. We may lose developers over this if
> it passed, but I expect it won't be many if any.
If Debian loses developers, it probably won't be noticed; Debian has
lost developers before, and will again.
> We may lose users if
> this passes, but people don't use Debian for the non-free software.
> They use it because they like it, so I suspect not many if any.
But I suspect a larger percentage of users will go. They like it because
it provides what they need, and for many of them part of what they need
is non-free.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
http/ftp: x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu
"A dynamic character with an ability to survive certain death and
a questionable death scene leaving no corpse? Face it, we'll never
see her again." - Sluggy Freelance
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