On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 08:28:24PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> writes: > > > This paragraph is phrased carefully so as to make it ambiguous whether > > the FSF acknowledges that Debian's main repository is the only place > > packages come from by default. Do they? > > They do, in their explanation of why Debian is not FSF endorsed. > > Debian's Social Contract states the goal of making Debian entirely > free software, and Debian conscientiously keeps nonfree software out > of the official Debian system. However, [reasons why this isn't > sufficient for FSF endorsement]. > > <URL:https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html> That is not, in my opinion, an acknowledgement that main is the *only* place where packages come from *by default*. Yes, it is the only *intended* way, but that's not the same thing. > > If so, it would be nice if the relevant paragraph on [1] would be > > updated. > > I think the above – in particular, “Debian conscientiously keeps nonfree > software out of the official Debian system.” – constitutes an explicit > acknowledgement that Debian by default installs only free software. I disagree with that. In that first paragraph, they say that nonfree is not part of the official Debian system. In the second paragraph, they say that Debian's installer in some cases recommends non-free, which can be read as "making sure it gets enabled" or something along those lines. I should note that with "the relevant paragraph", I did mean the second one, i.e., the part about the installer, quoted below. > (For my part, I'd prefer these discussions take care to use distinct > terms for the Debian Project and the operating system Debian; using the > single term “Debian” for both invites confusing statements such as > “Debian distributes works that are not distributed in Debian” which are > rightly mocked by detractors.) Yeah, that makes sense. > > I would still like to see some citation as to why they believe > > debian-installer "...in some cases recommends these nonfree firmware > > files for the peripherals on the machine". As I explain in [2], I > > don't think that's true. > > Agreed, I think you make a compelling case that “Debian recommends > non-free firmware” is untrue for the installer. Thanks. > If there's some other part of Debian recommending non-free software, > that's a bug to be identified specifically, and the current wording > from the FSF doesn't help. If it's a mere bug, that would be great, because then we could fix said bug and be done with it. I suspect, however, that rather than a bug, this is a case of the (Debian) project and the FSF disagreeing on what the correct way forward is. That's fine, but it would be better if the exact disagreement could be identified; that way, either we can agree to disagree, or the project or the FSF could decide that maybe the difference in opinion isn't that big and we could reconcile our differences. The current wording doesn't make that very easy, however. -- It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer -- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26
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