Re: Discussion - non-free software removal
On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 05:22:34PM +0000, Steven Fuerst wrote:
> > I think you stand a good chance of that happening even if my proposed
> > resolution passes.
>
> How can you be so sure? You don't seem to have announced an alternative
> server system yet.
If it doesn't happen, it says something about how little people value the
software there, doesn't it?
It's not my responsibility to announce something else. I'm not the one that
wants it.
> There is one small problem with this neat definition of what constitutes
> debian. Due to the wonders of this program called 'apt-get' it is
> possible to install the distribution once, and then forever update it
> via this wonderful invention called the internet. Which basically means
All of which is possible whether the servers are hosted by Debian or not. I
don't see any point here.
> > This sounds like a quibble with DFSG, the Debian Free Software Guidelines,
> > rather than with my proposal.
>
> Um, no. It is to do with the removal of a whole set of useful programs
> from the debian mirror system. My complaint has nothing to do with DFSG
> at all.
Why is it important to you that Debian in particular be distributing
software that it does not include in its distribution? Why should Debian be
extending charity to software that, by definition, we cannot include in our
distribution?
> Nope - here is the license in question:
You only quoted part of the license. A little lie by ommission, perhaps?
> * ANGBAND may be copied and modified freely as long as the above
> * credits are retained. No one who-so-ever may sell or market
> * this software in any form without the expressed written consent
> * of the author Robert Alan Koeneke.
debian/copyright ALSO states:
Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Harrison, James E. Wilson, Robert A. Koeneke
This software may be copied and distributed for educational,
research, and not for profit purposes provided that this
copyright and statement are included in all such copies.
Other copyrights may also apply.
> This prevents debian putting the games (Moria, Angband and Zangband) on
> CD and selling the CDs. However, it does not prevent these open source
> programs from being on the mirror network that debian provides, allowing
> many people to download and install these wonderful games for free.
It seems to me that even that may be a problem -- there is no grant to copy
and distribute for anything other than:
1. educational
2. research
3. not for profit
If you are a company hosting a Debian mirror, how exactly do you fall under
that? What if your mirror features banners? (Clearly a "for-profit"
activity)
What if you are a company that wants to contribute to angband? This license
seems to restrict that, as I mentioned before.
> > I appreciate the work of people like you to get code re-licensed under a
> > more favorable license such as the GPL. That way, it becomes easier for
> > others to contribute to our codebase -- and in this case, it would allow
> > businesses to do that.
>
> Um, no. A business can provide a patch to one of the affected games.
> They just can't sell it.
Or even distribute the result at all. Or even copy it, unmodified, for a
co-worker's computer. That's a hefty restriction -- so hefty, in fact, that
is seems misleading to claim that they could practically participate.
> > That way, Debian developers can fix bugs in
> > packages, no matter who is paying them (if anyone).
>
> You misunderstand the exact technicality here.
Then please, enlighten me.
> > > 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.
> > I don't see how you can say it ignores that. Can you elaborate?
>
> It's simple really. Not everyone has the lofty ideals that you have.
> You can satisfy many more people in the world by being slightly more
> moderate. I currently have 35 non-free packages on my machine
So where do we draw the line? Do we include MS Word by being more moderate?
What about people that are slightly more moderate than you -- they could
have the same arguments you do -- so why shouldn't we just include that?
Your argument leads to the inevitable result of allowing anything.
> (according to vrms). Two of them which I am particularly attached to
> (xfractint, and zangband) suffer from having relic licenses from the
> days before open source became popular. If you relax your ideals
> somewhat you'll see that these packages are effectively open source -
> but created by people without the lawyers to create a license like the
> GPL. Why should these historical large open source projects suffer
You don't need lawyers to do that, and the GPL was around back then.
> simply because they were umoungst the first ever developed?
We're not the ones causing that suffering (if indeed not being on
ftp.debian.org is suffering); it's the license.
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