Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
> Well, you have it within your power to do what Craig asks, which he
> indicates will stop him from swearing. Do you find those requests --
> ie, to talk about real issues, not pedantic non-events -- unacceptable?
He can make whatever requests he wants, but I have been speaking only
about real issues. Regardless, no matter what pedantry a person uses,
it does not justify his language, which is a separate topic.
Part of the problem here is that some of the values that I think are
most important here are regarded by you and some others as mere
pedantry.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that the compromise embedded in
section 5 of the SC has broken down. That compromise allows for
non-free to be hosted on Debian, but also says it is "not a part of
Debian".
Party A thought it didn't matter to them what things were called, but
was very concerned that non-free software be made available from the
Debian servers, and using the Debian infrastructure.
Party B was willing to grudgingly accept the distribution of non-free
on the Debian servers and the use of Debian's infrastructure to
support it, but provided only that it was clearly regarded as not
itself being a part of Debian.
Now this is a reasonable compromise. It's also reasonable to seek by
GR to write a new arrangement. But the existing compromise, with no
GR, must recognize that Party A had to give something up just as Party
B did. What Party A had to give up was that it had to accept that the
term "Debian" would not properly refer to the non-free stuff, which
was "not a part of Debian".
I think that Party B made the far more serious concession here, and I
find it repugnant that the current Party A people would like to take
away even the tiny concession about language which they made.
Appropriate language may not matter to you; it obviously doesn't
matter to Craig, but it does matter to some of us, and this was
exactly what the Party A people agreed to give up in the compromise
embedded in section 5 of the SC: that it would be inappropriate and
wrong to regard non-free as a part of Debian.
Thomas
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