Re: flame against non-free burning, time to think.
On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 01:08:02PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 07:41:02AM -0800, Osamu Aoki wrote:
>
> > I am afraid if current momentum of FREE software bigot pushes their
> > agenda, they may go further down to GR. (It is sad for me to see some
> > of the respected DD of mine are on that camp.)
>
> > I believe "Free and GNU are good, bigot of any kind is bad."
>
> Excuse me, but I have demonstrated more than once in this very discussion
> that I do not fit the definition of bigot. If there is any doubt in your
> mind, compare what I proposed this week to what I proposed in 2000, and note
> the differences and compromises therein. This kind of name-calling is
> uncalled for.
Sorry, for the choice of the word. I know English enough to be
dangerous. You are much more calmer than me in the response. But
please get the sentiment behind it as I stated in the other thread.
I do not want to reject some DD's work for the USER, if he is doing a
good job. GR is not the right way to force USER to use FREE version.
> > Reasons for not to expel non-free:
> >
> > (1) size of non-free section has no practical impact to over all
> > archive size (<<3%) No real financial damage.
> > See Susan's post Message-ID: <[🔎] 20021114103645.GA943@kleinmann.com>
>
> That's not a reason "not to expel", it's just saying that "there's not
> much difference one way or other."
And some DD maintains them in a good order, why others should chase them
out by GR? That is heavy handed. We can bug him with RC bug. That's
a fair game.
> > (2) If this is done then contrib will increase with installer and
> > real source and packages may be hosted in SF.NET or somewhere
> > with some standardized packaging practice. Even less real change.
>
> This is not inevitable, and from the sounds of it, not likely.
>
> > (3) If contrib is banned, then non-European Languages suffer awful X
> > screen due to lack of fonts (CJK-font issue) This is as bad
> > situation as Netscape was allowed to be binary only.
>
> This GR does NOT ban contrib.
>
> It does make it slightly easier to remove it later, but neither
> mandates nor encourages that removal.
>
> > (4) Many non-free are meant to be "Free" in the different context.
> > Some trivial DSFG violation does not deserve to be that bad as
> > long as there is a maintainer. ("lha" is classified as non-free.
> > I would say these can be free if we have money to hire reasonable
> > lawyer to argue in court. Some clause can be nullified due to
> > its enforcement history. I saw some one wanted to drive APSFILTER
> > to non-free recently.)
>
> Then you should be seeking to amend the DFSG, not opposing this GR.
I do not understand. I think they deserve to be non-free having stupid
license. But killing them out of archive just for that is not what I
seek.
> > (5) We are not asking these non-free opposing people to maintain
> > package. So there is no resource issues.
>
> I don't understand this paragraph.
If some DD are maintaining them, let's not bug them just because you
disagree them. Let's accommodate varied priority between FREE and USER.
GR to force them to move out of FTP,BTS,... is heavy handed.
If no DD maintains them, they will be expelled due to RC bug
eventually.
> > (6) Flame war on this issue is waist of energy. We will win
> > non-free war by writing better free code (OpenSSH and GPG as good
> > example).
>
> Then why to the opponents to non-free removal continue to trot out
> examples of "essential" bits of non-free software, even after the free
> alternatives have been developed for what was once "essential"
> non-free software?
I do not know others but if old ssh2 has RC bug for a long time, I think
it deserve to be kicked out of archive.
If mozilla have stabilized to handle all the Java stuff, netscape's
buffer over flow has no excuses and become real undisputed RC bug.
Then they will be out.
I like natural death of non-free software than poisoning death
non-free software. Excuse me if this was again too strong a word to
use.
> In other words, on what basis do you draw your conclusion that it is
> even ever possible for the development of free software to become so
> advanced such that there is not even one single non-free package with
> no free equivalent that is considered "essential" by at least one
> person?
If he insists and if he takes care of the package well, yes. (If he
engage in positively hostile activity toward free software, that is
different issue.)
Again, "When they get expelled from FTP" is not GR issue. This is an
issue of "FTP administration guideline for buggy software" for me.
I can assure you I will not be the one taking care those non-free
softwares.
Last note:
Touchy subjects are binary only data/software which Debian does not have
anything to contribute other than providing bandwidth or easy marketing
channel.
I can not make up minds for how it should be handled.
--
~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ +++++
Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> Cupertino CA USA, GPG-key: A8061F32
.''`. Debian Reference: post-installation user's guide for non-developers
: :' : http://qref.sf.net and http://people.debian.org/~osamu
`. `' "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software" --- Social Contract
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