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Re: Discussion - non-free software removal



On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 01:10:51AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>  Branden> The evidence is against this; the number of non-free
>  Branden> packages in Debian has increased, not decreased, over the
>  Branden> past few years.
> 
> 	But not as fast as the free software has grown, and thus is a
>  smaller fraction of the offerings. Indeed, one interpretation of the
>  market principles is  to let the non-free software remain, and
>  compete on merits, and if indeed they deserve to die, they shall.

I am having difficulty reconciling this statement with:

        And I firmnly believe that in time, when mopre and more people
        come into the fold, we can all wean ourseves of the diminishing
        list of such non free packages.

You were confident that non-free will diminish to zero, and yet the
number of packages is montonically increasing, and as log as any
non-free package competes favorably with a free one on "merits" (which
presumably cannot include freeness itself), we will continue to support
them.

In short, this sounds like a recipe for being stuck with non-free
forever.

> 	I kinda tend to favour this version of the free market
>  approach, and not have the regulators come and tilt the playing field
>  against the non free section.

So Debian is not a participant in the free market, but a government
agency?

> 	So, to turn your analogy around, people in favour of the GR
>  are like the abolitionists; who tried to abolish be decree the
>  presence of some potables in the US, despite user demand and the
>  presence of people willig to supply debianized versions of contraband
>  packages. 
> 
> 	manoj
>  enjoying this analogy stuff

You must be, since this one doesn't map very well at all.  I don't see
anyone proposing to imprison people who use non-free software, or
anything even vaguely analogous to that.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    It's like I have a shotgun in my
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    mouth, I've got my finger on the
branden@debian.org                 |    trigger, and I like the taste of
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |    the gunmetal. -- Robert Downey, Jr.

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