Re: Flame against non-free burning, time to think.
Clint, thanks for the comment:
On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 06:40:02PM -0500, Clint Adams wrote:
> > The judgment of the "LAST DAY" should be left to the USER. In
> > practical terms, this means until the last day its sponsor DD stop
> > supporting it in non-free or the USER decide to switch himself earlier.
>
> Are people more likely to support the GR if I orphan my non-free
> package?
No for me. It has no effect.
By the way, why orphan your non-free package arabtex (Arab language
TEX?)? Don't you need it? If you do not and you have no feel to it,
you can orphan it. If someone else needs it, he will adopt it.
Marginally bad license with good softwares will stay in non-free because
we can distribute them and some DD will find it necessary.
Do I miss it if you orphan it? Not really since I do not use it like
many other DD who never have exposure to Arab language. But it may be
different for the Arab speaking people. If there is no alternative,
it's a pity if you do without seeking someone else to take over.
As I stated, this kind of decision is not suitable for majority rules.
At least, I can not be the person to say this arabtex should be
expelled.
If it were pgp5 or ssh2, I will say it's about time and feel happy to
see FREE software matured to replace them. But I am sure some DD feel
these are still needed. I think that was the reason they are still
maintained. It will be a nice quiet death of pgp5 or ssh2, if no DD
supports them anymore.
If the organizer of this resolution did not focus too much about
expelling group of softwares but focused on promoting FREE version over
non-free version, it might have got wider support. I will support it
for sure. Maybe that is what the proponents were aiming and I am not
understanding their real intent. But reading of the posts by the users
in debian-user, my impression is not too far from the reality user felt.
I think bending DSFG to include marginally non-free good softwares to
free category has side effects to. I do not want to see that either.
(Then I have to check the license for all the packages to be sure for
my particular use.)
Regards,
Osamu
--
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Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> Cupertino CA USA, GPG-key: A8061F32
.''`. Debian Reference: post-installation user's guide for non-developers
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`. `' "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software" --- Social Contract
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