On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 07:44:59PM +0000, Dafydd Harries wrote: > Ar 21/01/2005 am 17:30, ysgrifennodd Christian Perrier: > > > > > | As there are many definitions of free software, we include the guidelines we > > > | use to determine if software is "free" below. We will support our users who > > > | develop and run non-free software on Debian, but we will never make the > > > | system depend on an item of non-free software. > > > > > > This is a no-go. We cannot use non-free software as part of the Debian > > > infrastructure. There is nothing to discuss as is. > > I can officially confirm that Rosetta is inded not free software. > > However, I don't think this need be a problem. Some d-i translators > using Rosetta will not make Debian non-free any more than some kernel > developers using BitKeeper makes Linux non-free, or that packages which > have upstream project hosted on SourceForge are non-free. It's not exactly the same. We are speaking about using rosetta as an important part of the debian l10n infrastructure. Something like feeding rosetta with the data extracted while generating the stats for www.debian.org/intl/l10n/ and then generating what you guys call "language packs" from the translators' work. [at least, that's what I'm speaking of;] So, in some sense, it could be comparable to run a non free ftp daemon on ftp-master or use bitkeeper to maintain dpkg. I understand that it wouldn't make dpkg non-free, but it's still forbidden by our social contract (in my understanding). Of course, it'd be different if a group of translators would use Rosetta on their own call without changing it to a major piece of our l10n infrastructure. > Of course, we understand very well that some people will object to using > a non-free tool. > > It is a stated long-term goal that Rosetta will be released under a free > licence, and I look forward to that day. Hey, that'd be really cool. Don't get me wrong here. I really appreciate the ubuntu work, and not only in the l10n area. I would love to work with you guys. But I simply feel that the conjunction of the rosetta licence and the deb social contract would prevent us from reaching the end of this path. That's why until rosetta's licence gets freed, I'm affraid we have to forget about the trend and use pootle. In a perfect world, we could all throw our code together and you'd merge rosetta with pootle while we work together to merge our scripts to get debian and ubuntu both as well translated. Thanks for your time, Mt.
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