Re: Discussion - non-free software removal
On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 05:59:28PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > 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.
so the reason for changing things now is that it has become too easy for
people to get non-free now?
i.e. that the purpose of the GR is to make it difficult and
inconvenient for debian users to access non-free.
well, that's not exactly surprising but it is nice to see it stated
baldly for a change.
> 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.
actually, it wasn't particularly heated. there was fairly
uncontroversial acceptance of the fact that there were many non-free
programs that we couldn't distribute by CD and that it really wasn't
worth the effort of trying to categorise licenses in more detail than
"free", "contrib", and "non-free".
"free" being stuff that meets the DFSG criteria
"contrib" being stuff that meets the DFSG criteria but which requires
proprietary software (whether in "non-free" or not) in order to be
useful.
"non-free" being stuff that fails the DFSG test on one or more points,
but is legal for us to distribute anyway.
but historical accuracy hasn't been your strong point in this argument.
for example, you've claimed something along the lines that non-free was
created so that we could start adding non-free packages to our ftp
archive when, in fact, the non-free section was created when we realised
that we needed to separate out the non-free stuff that had accumulated
in our archives (back in the early days, nobody paid too much attention
to the details of licenses, we didn't have a DFSG, and pretty nearly
anything was packaged if we could do so legally. later on we became
more careful about licensing, formalised our procedures and definitions,
and eventually created the social contract and the DFSG).
most of the things that we take for granted now didn't exist back then.
the strong ideological preference for Free Software was there but it
wasn't anywhere near as well defined as it is today, mostly because
nobody had yet taken the time to write it down and discuss/argue it, we
were too busy doing it to take time out to write about it.
before you try to claim that this isn't the way it happened, consider
this: i was there, i was a member of debian at the time in question,
while you weren't. i don't recall when you joined debian but you
weren't there in 94 or 95 and probably not in 96 either.
(IIRC there were only about 20 or 30 developers when i joined as a
developer, and about 15 when i first started using debian).
> 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?
as you yourself point out, there are some non-free packages that we
can't distribute via CD.
also, there are some non-free packages that Debian could legally
distribute on CD that can't be distributed by the for-profit companies
that burn and sell debian CDs. we didn't want to cause any legal
hassles for redistributors.
mostly, though, it's because no-one cares enough about non-free to go
through it and sort out which packages can be distributed on CD and
which can't. it's not worth the effort when the ftp archive is
available (and packages in there have already been sorted enough - if we
couldn't distribute them via ftp then they wouldn't be in there at all).
> 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.
changing your stripes in mid-argument isn't very believable.
i'd stick to the alleged moral high-ground if i were you, you've already
demonstrated that your side of the argument doesn't care about the
convenience of users.
craig
--
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
-- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
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