Re: Bug#129604: Interpreting the Social Contract, what is our priority ?
On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 01:35:29PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> "main" remains entirely free software but we support non-free software.
The social contract does not say that "we support non-free software".
It says "We will support our users who develop and run non-free software
on Debian". Not any kind of non-free software, just the one that runs on
Debian; and we don't support the software but the users who produce it or
use it.
Having accepted the social contract, I've made a commitment to help users of
the packages I maintain, regardless of whether they use Debian in conjunction
with non-free or to develop non-free software on it. I did not make a
commitment to endorse any non-free Debian package; even less to endorse a
non-free non-debian package.
> Debian and e.g. the FSF have different ideologies on non-free software.
...
> The social contract contains _our_ rules. Yes, we are more pragmatic and
> less dogmatic than other people regarding free software.
Are you suggesting that the FSF is more dogmatic than Debian?
I don't agree. A lot of GNU/Linux users and developers think it is very
dogmatic to reject perfectly free packages just because they depend on
non-free software.
The social contract lets some non-free developers use disk space and
facilities such as the BTS, because it judges that some people can't still
live without it. The FSF accepts Ghostscript as a GNU package, even if it is
also distributed as a non-free package. Both are willing to make some
concessions; they simply make different concessions. Maintainers of GNU
packages also give support to their users independently of whether they use
and developed non-free software with it.
I do volunteer work both for Debian and the FSF and do not see any conflict.
Regards,
Jaime
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