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Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations



Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo (2008-10-28 16:07 -0200) wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 06:01:45PM +0100, David Weinehall wrote:
>> Throwing out the firmware doesn't help our users, it makes things
>> worse for our users. And our users are our number one priority.
>
> Is it not providing them the best free/libre operating system?

Perhaps so, but it has also become quite clear that different people
have different goals and different definitions for software freedom. The
Social Contract means different things to different people. Therefore
it's a good paper to back up one's own views, whatever they are.

     1. Debian will remain 100% free

        [...] We will never make the system require the use of a
        non-free component.

The "system" doesn't require non-free components; it's just some users
and their hardware that does. Debian cares about the "system".

     4. Our priorities are our users and free software

        We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free
        software community. We will place their interests first in our
        priorities. [...]

Probably everybody has an opinion about what "our users" and the "free
software community" needs. By definition, "our users" are people who use
Debian. If they stop using Debian (perhaps because they don't like it or
it doesn't work in their machine) they are not our users anymore so
those people don't count. In the end Debian developers can just think
that "what I need is also the need of our users." :-)

I'm not ranting. I'm actually very happy and "passionate moderate"[1]
Debian user. Thanks you, everyone.

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 1. http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/27/414


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