On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:04:31PM -0500, Brian White wrote: > > We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on > > Debian, but we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free > > software. > > That's a reasonable expectation. Anything "non-free" should be optional. > If that's the resolution, I'll support it; however it seems that people > want to go well beyond this and ban non-free altogether. That, I'm against. Debian isn't a government. We can't "ban" things. Non-free software will continue to exist regardless of whether or not Debian elects to continue shipping it. > I'm not sure if that is a fair assessment or not. You have to take in > to account that Debian is distributing far more software in general. Not relevant. It's not Debian's mission to distribute software "in general". > Is the _percentage_ of non-free going up? No. > And even if it is... That's okay with me. The mission of Debian is not to satisfy Brian White, or any of us personally. > I think people should have the right to choose the copyright they > want. Nothing Debian can plausibly do can remove this right. > We should try nicely to persuade them, and then let them > run their own way within the restrictions placed upon them. Exactly. If they exercise their freedom to not meet our standards for Free Software, it's their responsibility to find other forums in which to promote their software. > It harms us not and give us a "hey, they're not so bad after all" type > reputation. I have never advocated a militant attitude towards copyright holders. More to the point, the proposed General Resolution doesn't address copyright holders as such in any way whatsoever. The proposed General Resolution's scope of action is confined to the Debian Project. > > At any rate, the state of the world today requires that Debian itself be > > concerned with copyrights and such if we are to be able to meaningfully > > promote "Free Software" as our Social Contract says we will. > > I think concern is okay, as is placing restrictions on how non-free is > made available. To do away with it altogether is a mistake, in my opinion. > There's just too much useful stuff in there Such as? In any event, this argument is hardly dispositive, as it is not Debian's mission to distribute "useful software"; if it were, I can think of a lot of useless crap in *main* I'd be arguing we rid ourselves of. > and since the primary part of Debian isn't too different from any > other Linux distribution, This statement confuses me. I was under the impression that Debian had grown to the point where we ship more software than any other Linux distribution (even counting only main). Also, the above fact shouldn't surprise you. That the Debian GNU/Linux system comprises only Free Software means that everyone else in the world can distribute it too. Debian cannot rely on differentiating itself in the marketplace through its list of available Free Software. > one big negative differentiating feature is all that would be needed > to drive away some users. Some people say we already have that: our packages aren't in RPM format. If the non-free section of the archive is the only thing that keeps Debian users using Debian, then I would say we have pretty definitively failed in our mission under the Social Contract. > > Even if our users aren't. > > The customer is always right. (Fortunately?) Debian doesn't have customers. We are not a business. We are founded on principles, not a profit motive. > It sucks, but it's the way things are. Well, actually, no, it isn't. > I'd love to punish some of my customers for this for many of the > stupid things they ask for, but they pay my salary and I've come to > enjoy having something to eat at supper time. You draw a salary from the Debian Project? Where do I send my résumé? > > What if no distribution *does* give them whay they want? What if they > > have to get non-free packages from some third party? Will they > > uninstall Debian just out of spite, and either do without the non-free > > software entirely, or retrieve it themselves? > > "If you don't please the customer, someone else will." Gosh, I'm glad to hear that capitalism is thriving. That must be the reason I have a plethora of choices for affordable high-speed Internet connectivity in Indianapolis aside from the telephone monopoly (DSL through SBC) and the cable monopoly (cable modem via Comcast). In the real world, many customers remain unsatisfied, because a combination of market forces and government regulation render it unncessary to cater to them. At any rate, plenty of Linux distributions already offer non-free software, so Debian doesn't even differentiate itself in the regard you're talking about. > No, I'm sure they won't uninstall it out of spite. The reality of the > situation, though, is that some distribution somewhere will make this > kind of software available. The already have. > We're in a competitive market, which is something I find kinda ironic > considering that there is no money to be made. Indeed. So by making non-free packages available free of charge, we're actually undermining market opportunities for its commercial, profitable distribution. That is, of course, when the licenses on the non-free packages permit this, which is seldom. So, uh, what does the market have to do with anything? > It's a matter of pride, I guess. "Look how many users we have..." I think you accurately reflect the sentiments of a lot of the opponents of the proposed GR here. As in the Gentoo thread, a lot of people, not all of the Developers, are convinced that popularity is everything. I personally rank freedom and quality as higher virtues. Non-free packages necessarily inihibit the former, and often inhibit the latter through their licensing terms, which make it awkward or impossible for us to ensure their quality. I see freedom and quality as virtues that are reflected in the Social Contract: "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software". We serve our users by making quality Free Software available to them. The Social Contract does not insist that we do everything we can to make sure we have as many users as possible -- that's putting the cart before the horse. If we build it, they will come. > > *IF* such users actually impede our ability to promote Free Software > > (which is a priority of ours, as our Social Contract states), then being > > "rid" of such users would not necessarily be determental to us. > > It may not be detrimental when it comes to promoting free software, but > is is detrimential in other ways. For example, if I try to find software > not directly supported by Debian, it isn't too often that .deb files > are available. There's always a .rpm, and it seems Alien has covered > all the packages I've tried to convert to date, but I sure don't have > any warm-fuzzies doing that. So you've never actually had a problem using alien to convert RPMs, but non-free is a nice security blanket for you? > Moments like those make me consider switching. Nothing Debian can do can deprive users of the choice to use another distribution. > Now, those users who are looking for software outside of Debian main are > also likely to be the same folk who would use non-free (that seems a > reasonable link to me, anyway) so losing them would also reduce the need > for others to include .deb next to .rpm files. Not necessarily. They might ask the upstream sources of the RPMs to generate DEBs as well. > In the end, people like me have more moments of doubt about whether > I'm using the right distribution. Debian's mission under the Social Contract is not to eliminate doubt and fear. If we jump at very moment of doubt we'll be chasing ghosts forever. > Even if you don't agree with the example, I think you can see how there > are more consequences to consider. The potential consequences must always been considered. No one's raised a potential consequence that I haven't already thought about and considered worth the risk. (After all, we pretty exhaustively explored the issue 2.5 years ago, and that was back when Netscape Navigator was important.) > > While I am not sure that it is true that users of the Debian non-free > > section of the archive do actually have this impact, it is a possibility > > that you seem to be completely ignoring. > > Perhaps I am. My personal priority is more for a solid and well-rounded > distribution with all the software any user could ever want to use. To > accomplish that, you need as large a software base as possible. So, in > that way, my personal feelings and the stated role of Debian differ > somewhat. I agree. > Here's where we differ. I don't think the best possible product would be > 100% free software. Try for it, yes. But don't sacrifice functionality > for idealism. But as I said, that's my opinion and differs somewhat from > Debian's stated goal. Perhaps you should be proposing an amendment to the proposed GR. It might be useful to have a ballot option that encourages a softening, instead of a hardening, of Debian's stance vis a vis non-free. > > What have those people to do with the proponents of this General > > Resolution? Is everyone who has ever disagreed with you or something > > you've done involved in a vast, monolithic conspiracy to upset you? > > It's not the disagreement. It's the fanaticism of the mail! Such as? While I support the proposed GR, I don't speak for John Goerzen or anyone else, and they don't speak for me. I speak for myself. Don't vent your frustration with other people on me. And if you feel that I have been illogical (fanaticism, to me, implies illogic), please point out where and how so that I can correct my error. (But try and leave the jokes alone. :-P ) > I hate being preached to, and it's made worse when people don't really > understand what they're saying. That's quite a presumption to make. What gives you such insight into other people's mental processes? > There's no conspiricy, just some narrow mindedness. ...an easy label that I've never seen operationally defined in any way other than "disagreement with my point of view". If you feel that some (or all) proponents of the proposed GR are reasoning from erroneous premises, you should be very specific and point out exactly how. -- G. Branden Robinson | One man's "magic" is another man's Debian GNU/Linux | engineering. "Supernatural" is a branden@debian.org | null word. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
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