On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 12:52:35AM +0100, Rémi Letot wrote: > > Maintenance of the non-free section of the archive and of the > > packages within consume a non-zero quantity of resources. > > ressources. ? I don't believe I misspelled the word. > And maintaining the same level of service to users (ie recreating the > archive structure specifically for non-free, mirroring it,...) would > consume much more ressources than the current situation. That argument makes sense if Debian's mission is to make as much software available to our users as cheaply as possible. However, this mission is not clearly expressed in the Social Contract. Should it be? > > The Social Contract makes it clear that the packages outside of > > Debian main enjoy "second-class" status. They are not the primary > > focus of our efforts, but a diversion that was, in 1997 deemed to be > > worthwhile for the sake of utility to our users. > > What has changed since then ? Among other things, more people get more of their software directly from the Internet than did in 1997, where distribution via CD-ROMs was of critical importance. Broadband has not made CD-ROMs irrelevant, but it has increased the number of people who do network-based upgrades and installations, instead of waiting for a new CD-ROM to come out before upgrading their systems. In materials that are not available to you because you aren't a Debian developer, there was a very long discussion in 1997 on the debian-private mailing list about the exact form the Social Contract should take. The argument over whether we should distribute non-free on our Official CDs or not was extremely heated and contentious. I am curious why no opponent of this General Resolution has yet proposed that we start shipping non-free on our Official CD-ROMs again. Such packages would go in a "non-free" directory on the CD-ROMs just as they go in a directory so-named on our archive servers. Surely our users would be better served by this, just as they are served well by our distribution of non-free packages via our mirror network. Sure, there are some non-free packages that we can't distribute via CD-ROM for licensing reasons, but why don't we ship everything we can? Why do we compel our users to jump through the hoop of getting non-free packages from a Debian mirror? Some of them have slow network connections, or none at all, and this decision inconveniences them greatly. > BTW, I have seen that netscape is not considered usefull > anymore. Well, let me say that it is to me right now. I need it to > connect to my bank's online systems. They are in the process of > modifying it to work with mozilla (or netscape6), but it hasn't > happened yet. I know the situation is specific, but such is my use of > non-free software. I hope you realize that Debian dropping Netscape packages from the mirror network would not force them off of your system. > > Furthermore, I don't care if Joe Developer wants to work on a > > non-free package. Must he insist that the Debian Project be > > affiliated with that work? > > It is right now, and it would be a disservice to the users to drop > that support. Or to make non-free software somewhat more difficult to > get. Yes. But the same is true for omitting non-free packages from our official ISO images. > If users tend to be confused about the situation of the non-free > section wrt debian, I think a better strategy would be to clearly > document and advertise it. I think it has been. -- G. Branden Robinson | You don't just decide to break Debian GNU/Linux | Kubrick's code of silence and then branden@debian.org | get drawn away from it to a http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | discussion about cough medicine.
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