Re: Bug reports of DFSG violations are tagged ‘lenny-ignore’?

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 11:43 -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>         Actually, I think we need a GR on the lines of
> ,----
> |  http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007
> |  General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel
> `----
> 
>         To get a special dispensation for lenny.

I think this would be insane.  It smacks of the nonsense of the US
Congress extending copyright over and over again, always for a "limited
term", but such that the terms just never actually expire.

I object to a second round of this.  I was ok with it once, as a
compromise, but the understanding I had then was that it was a one-time
thing, to give time to actually *fix* the problem.

The kernel team should *fix the bug* and not just sit on their hands.
We should not release until it's fixed.

But the continued dishonesty of holding out one set of principles and guarantees, while granting ourselves exceptions on every release, is not tolerable to me.

>         I do not think that willfully violating the social contract is a
>  decision for a few delegates to make -- we, as a project, should
>  acknowledge the need for and make a special exception to release Debian
>  with known non-free bits in it.

We did that once.  With the understanding that we wouldn't do it
again--or at least, that was my understanding--it was proffered as a
special case, a one-time thing, because of the urgency of the case.  

Moreover, at the time, there was an amendment proposed to make it "as
long as required" and it got fewer votes than the one-time thing.
Pretty clearly, we *already decided* this issue, and we need no vote.
We need the relevant maintainers to be told "your unwillingness to fix
this means we will not be able to release".

I object very strongly to the feeling that I am being held hostage by
developers who will not fix the bug, and then protest "emergency! we
must release! no delay! we'll do it next time!" and then sit on their
hands again for another go-round.  The solution is to refuse to play
along, and to say, "hey, you had two years; we're just going to wait
until you fix the bug."

Thomas