Re: Final Draft: Interpretive Guideline regarding DFSG clause 3
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
> What I suspect you're becoming confused about though, is thinking that
> removing a package from the Debian distribution, and adding it to the
> non-free component, harms users even slightly. It doesn't. It is still
> trivial to get, still supported, and still gives users the exact same
> rights they had previously.
Ah, but that's the point. If you're on the side that thinks that
non-free is, well, "just as easy to get" as Debian, then you've
already forgotten some of the important practical reasons for the
separation of non-free from main. (For example, CDs don't include
non-free.) It is *not* just as easy for users to get, and moreover,
since I think the emacs manual *is* free, users would be misled by its
placement in non-free.
Which means: there is no "default" choice here which is harmless; if
people are unhappy with the status quo, then we will need to decide
which side is Right, and I don't think there's a way to get around the
fact.
One thing that is important to recognize is that the position
"absolutely no invariant text in main of any kind" is not tenable at
all, so people should *please* stop appealing to it, and instead focus
on which kinds of invariant text they do want, and which they don't
want, and why they draw the line where they do.
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