Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
Xavier Roche wrote:
>
> On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> Since the old social contract was meant to be applied to
>> everything on the Debian CD, there is no difference between the old
>> SC and the new SC. The new one just is clearer. Hence, editorial
>> change.
>
> Quoting Colin Watson :
> "Before this GR, the social contract didn't explicitly forbid its
> distribution as part of Debian: some people interpreted it to do so,
> while others did not. Accordingly, it was possible to consider such
> material non-critical."
>
> I consider including binary firmwares NOT critical. For example, I have
> aWi-Fi PCMCIA card, with a firmware. The firmware is injected at runtime
> instead of being in ROM.
> This kind of hardware is now banned from Debian.
> I could have used the same card but with ROM firmware, and it would have
> been okay. Same driver, but 1. with loadable binary, and 2. with
> already-loaded-binary. What's the point making a difference between these
> two cases ?
Distinguishing between free software and non-free software? Distinguishing
between software and hardware? Take your pick.
We're happy to put the non-free firmware in non-free.
Actually, some of the firmware *has source* and is free. Did you realize
that?
"I could have used the same computer but with WinCE in ROM, and it would
have been OK."
>
>> More than 50%
>> > voting participation with "Status of the non-free section", and only
>> > 20% with this one, which also has great consequences ?
>> > Weird, isn't it ?
>> I can't help apathy.
>
> This is NOT apathy. More than 50% of DD votes in the last pool, and only
> 20% in this one. This is not apathy, but a problem with the GR redaction.
>
> But that's not a problem. Users (and beginners) will have much more
> troubles making their machine work, but who cares ? Oh, the social
> contract ?
This is the same argument for putting Netscape in main, and for putting the
NVIDIA drivers in main.
> In other news,
> "Social Contract Amendment May Bump Sarge To 2005"
It's not the amendment, it's AJ.
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/04/04/26/229237.shtml?tid=106&tid=117&tid=185&tid=90&tid=99
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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