On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 05:22:34PM +0000, Steven Fuerst wrote: > John Goerzen wrote: > > On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 02:18:16PM +0000, Steven Fuerst wrote: > > > I'd like to see Zangband, Angband, and Moria still be apt-gettable. > > > > 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. Why should he have to? Why shouldn't non-free software be supported by those who care about it? Why does it *need* to be a free rider on the support structure that Debian has erected for the benefit of our users and Free Software? I made, and continue to have at my disposal, an apt-gettable archive for pre-release versions of XFree86. This was not a very hard thing to do. Maintaining XFree86 as a Debian package is far more challenging than maintaining an apt-gettable archive to house that package. > > As things stand today, the Debian distribution already does not contain > > non-free software. That is, our operating system, CDs, etc. do not have > > that software. Our FTP site and mirror networks, however, do carry > > non-free. So, to be precise, Zangband had never been a part of the Debian > > distribution. > > 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 > that what is on the CD's isn't important at all. An excellent point. When the Social Contract was first proposed in 1997, there was a big argument over whether or not we should put non-free packages on the official CDs. We didn't because we didn't want people to be confused and think that non-free packages were part of the Debian system. > As far as I'm concerned, debian is what is on my machine now. ;-) Another excellent point. I would imagine that many people think as you do. What we *say* the "official" Debian OS is almost completely lost on people. What ends up on their box is Debian, and that's as far as it goes for them. Perhaps the Social Contract should be amended to recognize this reality. > > 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 not advocate that we move all of these useful programs into main, then? (Maybe it doesn't matter -- main, contrib, non-free, it's all the same -- it's all apt-gettable, and if it's apt-gettable, it's Debian.) > 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. Where, for all intents and purposes, as you said yourself, they become part of "Debian", the product, the operating system. > Correct - which is why nearly all recent angband (and angband variant) > maintainers have joined together to release all their changes to the > source in a dual Angband/Moria - GPL license. Eventually, when no > original code remains, then the games can be relicensed under the GPL. > However, Zangband is 250Kloc and Angband is not much less, which means > that this project is going to take years to complete at the current rate > of progress. > > See http://www.thangorodrim.net/development/opensource.html for more > details. I wonder why they care to go to the trouble. Is CD-ROM based distribution important to them? What is their motivation for making the effort to relicense Angband/Moria under the GNU GPL? Once can hope that it is not the same motivation that some people have ascribed to John Goerzen in proposing this GR. > However, it doesn't just do that. In addition, it also includes extra > stuff on the internet for the benefit of its users. How do our users know that it's "extra stuff"? If it's "apt-gettable", it's "Debian", right? If "Debian" is "what is on my machine now", how does anyone know the difference? > 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 > (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 > simply because they were umoungst the first ever developed? Why don't you propose a General Resolution to moderate the Social Contract and Free Software Guidelines such that these "historical large open source projects" don't suffer any more? -- G. Branden Robinson | Damnit, we're all going to die; Debian GNU/Linux | let's die doing something *useful*! branden@debian.org | -- Hal Clement, on comments that http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | space exploration is dangerous
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