Re: Bug#129604: Interpreting the Social Contract, what is our priority ?
On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> > That's perhaps in your mind, but the Social Contract makes it clear
> that> this is an "and". Section 2 of the Social Contract says
> >
> > "We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on
> > Debian..."
> >
> > and the complete section
> >
> > 5. Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards
> >
> > covers our relation to non-free software.
> >
> >
>
> It also says "1. Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software"
>
> Section 1 could be seen to be conflicting with section 5.
Section 1 itself says:
"We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on
Debian..."
The main point is:
- Debian (= "main" part of out ftp archive) will remain 100% free
software.
- We support our users who use non-free software by supplying the
"contrib" and "non-free" parts of our ftp archive and by e.g. supporting
non-free libc5 based applications (I know several people who switched
because of the still working libc5 from other distributions to
Debian...).
I can't see any conflict.
> Its against the ideology of free software to support non-freee software.
Debian and e.g. the FSF have different ideologies on non-free software.
In Debian free software has a high priority but we say that "We will
support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian". This
is _our_ definition of what we are doing.
You might not be happy with this but it's a consensus we all agree on.
Before you start arguing on it _please_ (re)read the threads about
"Removing non-free" in mid-2000 first.
> Merging section and 1 and 5 it says (my interpretation) "We support the
> use of non-free software but we will remain entirely free software."
See above:
"main" remains entirely free software but we support non-free software.
> Would it be fair to say the social contract doesnt supports the
> __priciniples__ of free software, just the current implementation of
> those principles ?
See above:
The social contract contains _our_ rules. Yes, we are more pragmatic and
less dogmatic than other people regarding free software. Your personal
views might differ but before you were accepted as an official Debian
developer you agreed to uphold the Social Contract when working for
Debian.
> My argument isnt that my interpretation is correct, it is that the
> social contract isnt clear, and different people will interpret it
> different ways... which may be a source of some of the constant division
> between developers.
See above:
The Social Contract is quite clear.
> Glenn
cu
Adrian
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