Re: Debian trademark [was: Debian GNU/w32, may ready to be started?]

["John H. Robinson, IV" <jhriv@ucsd.edu>]

On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 04:22:45PM -0500, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> We are, after all, in the "business" of providing Free Software to as
> many people as we possibly can, aren't we?

http://www.debian.org/social_contract

  4. Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software
     We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free-software
     community.


this is a very interesting chicken-and-edd problem.

it says our users, and free-software community.

let's assume that Debian has _no_ users. so then the second part of the
clause takes effect. so ports like linux and The Hurd can be allowed.

the linux and Hurd users can then be a part of Users and be in the first
part of the clause.

if we violate(my opinion) the second half, and port to a non-free (by
any definition) kernel[1] then those people get to be included in the
first clause.

since that is not the case, those using w32 are not a part of the first
clause, and get to be excluded by the second. thusly, we need not worry
about them.

now what about those people that ``dual boot'' or ``dual login'' (such
as win at work, GNU/linux at home). when they are using win, they are
not one of our users, now, are they? (still, my opinion)

you are welcome to refute.

-john

[1] command.com, system.dll, system32.dll, whatever Sun calls their
kernel (SunOS? vmuniz?), whatever you want to call whatever kernel.