Re: Screw non-free.
Bruce, you have layn claim to authorship of the Debian Social Contract
previously, can you please clarify your position wrt ean's comments
below.
Thanks
Zenaan
On Fri, 2004-03-12 at 12:21, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> The Social Contract itself is the result of a charged discussion that _I_ had
> at USENIX with Robert Young (long ago CEO of Red Hat) about what _I_ wanted
> in a Linux distribution.
>
> I argued that when someone chooses an operating system they give power
> (economic and ideological) to the organization they choose. Free Software is
> an ideology and any organization that purports to be a Free Software
> distributor owes its users a promise to support that ideology.
>
> I told Bob that I didn't want to get bait and switched. I didn't want to give
> my economic power to some organization that was just going to cash in when
> they got the chance. I said that Red Hat should promise me that code they
> wrote would always be under the GPL. Bob told me that such a policy would be
> the "kiss of death" for Red Hat.
>
> That discussion set me solidly on the track of supporting Debian from then on
> and it formed the basis for the discussions that became the Social Contract
> and then the Debian Free Software Guidelines and then the Open Source
> definition and so on.
>
> If you value the Social Contract and like what is says then keep in mind that
> it first rolled off my tongue.
>
> At that discussion the priority was this:
>
> - Make sure the code, all of it, is Free so that we are not cheated out of our
> rightful control as the stakeholders.
>
> - Make sure that the organization does not lie, or hide its problems, or
> deceive its constituents.
>
> - Make sure that people can use the software for any purpose including
> commercial use as long as the above core trusts are not violated.
>
> Non-free and contrib crept in as a matter of convenience. At the time the vast
> majority of people could not download something as big as Debian so their
> importance was discounted. Those times are passing and we need to come to
> terms with where we came from so that we can firmly perceive where we are
> headed.
>
> Debian is Free. Support does not mean distribution. If an organization or an
> author is not kind enough to give us what we consider a Free license then we
> should not show them the kindness of distributing their work. We won't
> purposefully break or thwart the use of their software but we shouldn't
> distribute it. That goes for anybody, right up to Richard Stallman.
>
> Keep Debian Free. No non-free in Debian.
>
> On Thursday 11 March 2004 18:40, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > _You_ have personally agreed that _you_ will support the Debian users
> > who run non-free software on Debian by becoming a Debian developer.
>
> --
> Ean Schuessler, CTO
> Brainfood, Inc.
> http://www.brainfood.com
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