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Re: Discussion - non-free software removal



Hi,

On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 10:05:03AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 03:43:52PM +0100, Emile van Bergen wrote:
> > > The debian project has to realise it has users and upstream maintainers
> > > as well as the people who create packages.  Your GR totally ignores this
> > > fact.
> > 
> > Amen. We've /got/ to realise that serving the users is in the end the
> > only goal.
> 
> Then you would have us amend the Social Contract:
> 
>     4. Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software 

Not necessarily, it doesn't conflict with my interpretation of our goals
in any way; it represents it quite accurately.

However, in the end, software is there only for the humans that use it.
Not the other way around.

> > I mean, let's not forget that it all started out because people wanted
> > other people to have access to good software they could use, improve and
> > share, and found existing software licensing too restrictive. Not to be
> 
> Exactly.  So what end does it serve, other than to be the "most influential
> source" as you say below, to provide non-free?  What if we lose 1% of our
> users because of it -- maybe we'll gain 5% down the road because we have
> better Free Software?  Does it matter?

I don't think that the Debian Project will automagically provide more
free software once we stop distributing a non-free repository alongside
Debian. That's a too easily assumed argument in this discussion.

The end that /not/ removing non-free serves is that it provides users
with software that some Debian Developers and some users consider
important and free enough to use and support.

If it's useful enough even for some people to spend energy on, who are
we to say we aren't willing to lend our infrastructure to allow other
users to benefit from that effort, if we don't have to give up work on
truly free software to allow it to continue?

It's not like developers working on packages in non-free will suddenly
stop spending time on packages they use and need themselves and start
work on some other packages. Anybody who does plan to do so, should do
so by his own choice, and shouldn't need the removal of non-free.

We're all grown ups, we can make our own decisions which software we'll
use. Of course we believe that people are better off with Free software,
but that only applies in general, not for each and every particular
situation. I won't even spend a blink of an eye thinking if I should get
rid of daemontools or qmail on my system if Debian stops providing it
through non-free. Because I find them quite free enough, although I too
regret we're not free to distribute binaries.

I think that dhe Debian project benefits from non-free because Debian
plus non-free is more attractive to people than Debian sans non-free. Of
course being attractive is not a goal in itself, but important to
realise our goal of serving our users (including ourselves) by giving
them Free Software.

Because to realise that goal, we need developers, and to get developers,
we need enthusiast users, and to get enthusiasts we need newbies, and to
get newbies we need to provide enough value as a way to get involved
with GNU/Linux that people will consider Debian. The fact that Japanese
support for xpdf is available, good speech synthesis, DJB's stuff, all
helps in that.

Cheers,


Emile.

-- 
E-Advies / Emile van Bergen   |   emile@e-advies.info
tel. +31 (0)70 3906153        |   http://www.e-advies.info

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