On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 03:55:02PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: > > 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? It's not a matter of ease, it's a matter of what people are exposed to when they're first exposed to the "Debian" product. In 1997 it was probably a CD-ROM or two. Nowadays it's probably a bootstrapping CD-ROM or so, and the rest of the distribution is retrieved from the net. > 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. It is true that straw men are easier to defeat than the actual arguments of one's opponents. > > 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. Those with access to the debian-private archives can check out messages posted by Alex Yukhimets and others, and make up their own minds on this point. > 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". ...which isn't the same thing as agreeing on whether we should distribute as much as possible on the CDs or not. > but historical accuracy hasn't been your strong point in this argument. Those with access to the debian-private archives can determine the validity of your accusation for themselves. > 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 Nope, actually I have made no such assertion. The "something along the lines of" is suggestive of your busy construction of straw men to fight. > 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. I became a Debian developer in January or February of 1998. I have, however, read the debian-private discussion threads in June and July of 1997 regarding the Social Contract and DFSG. If there was discussion, say on IRC, that was more important and which is the "real story" behind these documents, then no, I wasn't privy to it. > > 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. So? We exclude those from the 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. *shrug* Shouldn't be any harder to solve this problem than it was to handle "non-US". > 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. People only wake up and care about non-free when someone proposes that Debian stop distributing it. > > 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'm trying to find out if those who oppose the GR actually stand for something, or just against things. > 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. I speak only for myself. You, however, seem to go to a lot of trouble to speak on behalf by putting words in my mouth. But, then, this is hardly unexpected -- it is, as far as I have been able to discern, your exclusive means of argument when you don't have concrete facts on your side. -- G. Branden Robinson | Human beings rarely imagine a god Debian GNU/Linux | that behaves any better than a branden@debian.org | spoiled child. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
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