Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
Michael Poole wrote:
> Glenn Maynard writes:
>
>> On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 10:45:13AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
>>> I agree that it is impossible to partition the stuff in software and
>>> data. - There _is_ a grey zone. Accepting this and trying to differ
>>> betweeen "data" and "at least partially »software«" might be more
>>> useful.
>>
>> All data is software. It is difficult to partition programs from data,
>> but software is a superset of both.
>
> Please stop this crusade to redefine "software." Its definition:
To its historic definition? You're using an overly modern and degenerate
defintion, of course. :-) I'll keep my crusade, because I have no other
word which means "software" in the old sense, whereas there is another word
which means "software" in the new sense: "computer program".
<snip>
> The entire point of the recent GR was that some Debian developers and
> users use "software" as the rest of the world uses the word, and
> exclude things like fonts, images, or statistical data.
No, that wasn't the point of the GR. If you use that definition of
software, then since "Debian will remain 100% Free Software", fonts, images
and statistical data do not belong in Debian; certainly they should not
consistitute a significant part of it.
I was expecting someone to propose an amendment which changed it to "The
software in Debian will remain 100% Free Software", which would get you
what you thought the old Social Contract said, but oddly enough nobody did.
Go ahead! Do it! :-)
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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