Re: My (less-then-important) personal position
On Jun 14, Ben Armstrong wrote:
> Kindly address the main point of the post and don't butcher it to only
> respond to my personal position. My personal position is of very little
> relevance. The lunacy over pitting free software vs. the needs of the
> users is what I wanted to focus on. I regret now even stating what I
> believed personally.
I don't think it's an "either-or" thing. Free software is great, but
we should also service the needs of our users. Personally, I think we
do a good job of providing a free system that can be augmented by
various packages that fail the DFSG, but that we keep around because
(a) users want them and (b) developers are willing to maintain them.
Can we serve our users with only free software? Yes. But we can
serve them better by providing some additional software. Personally,
I'd rather people use Debian with 1-6 non-free additional packages
they get from us than have them buy from Corel or Stormix, ending up
with some hodgepodge of free and non-free software. Without those 1-6
packages (different for everyone ;-), a lot of people won't use
Debian. I think we can sacrifice a bit of purity for some acceptance
in the domain of Linux users (heaven forbid I use a word like
"marketplace"... that might sound like PR. ;-)
Chris
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