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Re: Honesty in Debian (was Re: Amendment to GR on GFDL, and the changes to the Social Contract



On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:55:57AM +0100, Xavier Roche wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > Fonts or documentations are not softwares, for god's sake!
> > everything that is not hardware is software
> 
> So a cat is a software, or a hardware ? Do I have to provide the sources
> (the DNA full sequence) if I want to give a kitten to someone, following
> the "free" spirit ? :p

A cat is hardware, obviously (it's a physical entity), it runs a
proprietary operating system, but can be taught. This is very much
unrelated to the rest of the thread *grin*.

> > all the rest is excuses and play with words.
> 
> My opinion is that my holiday pictures aren't neither hardware nor
> software.

They're software, sortof... but you don't *have* to make them Free ;)

> > Indeed, but they should know (and we should tell them), that the hardware they
> > are buying is not free-software friendly
> 
> Err, I think the problem is that most users *do not care*. They just want
> their card to *work*.

But if distributing the drivers is not possible (even in non-free), then
we don't want to do that... if they can be distributed, but we haven't
got source and the licence doesn't allow modifications, they should be
in non-free... just because the *users* might not care, doesn't mean
that we can randomly change the definition of free and non-free... no
matter *how* many kittens you get involved.

> I think this more productive to make their card work, AND then tell them
> "this card is working with a non-free piece of thing, meaning that you may
> have problems in the future in case of bugs or after upgrading your
> system. please ask the manufacturer to do something about it"

Agreed. But if the driver is non-free, then it doesn't belong in
anywhere but non-free... making a custom CD for the non-free hardware
maybe an option?

> > so that they have a chance to vote
> > with their wallet and chose those companies who are friendly to free software
> 
> You mean Mandriva ?
> 
> > when buying hardware, so hiddenly putting non-free software in main, is
> 
> I was talking about firmwares, that is, opaque piece of bits aimed to be
> run on an external, exmbedded system, part of the hartdware.

If it's *real* firmware, then it's embedded on the hardware... and so we
don't need to distribute it, and then it is 'hardware'... if we're
having to upload it, then it's undoubtedly software, and we want the
freedom to modify it, and distribute it... at least for main... for
non-free we just want the right to distribute it.

> > counterproductive, while putting it in non-free, and making its use easy if
> > the user wants to, is the right way out of this, and the more (if not only)
> > honest way of dealing with this issue.
> 
> In this case, yes, the solution might be to create a "non-free-data"
> *distributed* and available in standard.

That looks like a new section to "side step" the fact that this is
non-free... "hmmm".

> > So, you believe that documentation is hardware, well, this is a sensible
> 
> No more software or hardware than a cat. The world is not binary.

Look, cats are hardware running a proprietary OS, stop trying to blur
lines that are clear cut ;)
-- 
Brett Parker



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