Re: Discussion - non-free software removal
Steven Fuerst wrote:
> These old programs were created before the concept of 'open source'
> was formed. However, they were made and maintained with the same
> philosophy, and anyone may lookup old and new versions of the codebase
> without too much of a problem. (Google is your friend) However, since
> the original authors tended to be students of computer science, not
> law - the resulting licenses these programs are under are not optimal
> under any stretch of the imagination.
>
> Basically, I'm trying to describe a third class of software. Things
> that were made before truely 'free' software existed, but yet are
> 'open', and have remained so for decades. This software is not closed
> in any way, and it supports a rather large community of people who
> modify it at will via the internet.
>
> This old software doesn't fit nicely into the mold that was created
> long after it was made. Yet it somehow manages to capture some of the
> spirit of the revolution that I believe it helped to form. Why
> shouldn't debian continue to support these rare pioneering works?
I can see what you're saying. You're defining a specific category of
legacy programs that predate current ideas about "open source" or "free
software", but which were clearly intended to be freely redistributable
on a non-profit basis. (The idea being not that the author necessarily
objected to commercial or closed-source software, but more likely just
that he didn't want someone else making lots of money from his work.)
This is clearly, by definition, a closed category; you can't write a new
program today and claim that it fits in. So Debian could, perhaps,
consider continuing to distribute these programs as "non-free", even if
it removed other non-free programs such as Acrobat Reader (which Adobe
has the power to release under a free license if it pleases).
I can see some merit to this. I'm not particularly interested in playing
Moria myself, but it is certainly a classic game of its type, and I
don't think Debian would have to worry about a slippery slope or a
continually growing non-free section if non-free were limited to legacy
programs such as Moria.
So perhaps rather than entirely eliminating non-free, Debian could take
a slightly less drastic approach of redefining what kinds of programs
are allowed in it. Legacy "not quite free" programs like Moria would be
let in, but not programs whose authors are available and refuse to
release them under DFSG-compatible licenses, and certainly no closed
source programs like acroread.
What does everyone else think of this? Is this a viable middle ground
that gets rid of the least-free and closed-source packages, but retains
those that can reasonably be considered to have been licensed reasonably
by the standards of their time, even if they are not fully "open-source"
in the modern sense?
Craig
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