Re: Hypocrisy of Debian (was: Sorry, no more RC bugs for non-free data in main ...)
Markus Laire wrote:
> On 8/30/06, Roberto Gordo Saez <roberto.gordo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If this is the common feeling here, I think I made a serious mistake
>> choosing Debian, because it does not follow my definition of freedom.
>> I would like to urge to change the Social Contract to be clarified
>> this in this case. I'm serious about that, it is no joke, because I
>> feel mislead. When reading it I was thinking I was doing the correct.
>> I was not sending those bugs because I am bad person, I was actually
>> thinking that was the common feeling and the correct think to do.
>>
>> Currently, under my point of view, the Social Contract and guidelines
>> do not reflect reality, they are just hypocrisy. This is a subjective
>> view, I know, but I think I'm not the only person in the world who may
>> understand it this way, so please, clarify.
>
> You are not the only one.
>
> I have somewhat similar feelings after I found out that the
> "cdrtools"-package[1] included in Debian isn't DFSG-free, but is still
> included in main.
>
> (Even worse, its license might even be illegal because it's GPLv2 +
> incombatible restrictions)
>
> This problem was mentioned in this list on _2004_ but cdrtools still
> hasn't been removed from Debian (see [2]). IMHO "hypocrisy" is perfect
> word to describe such behaviour.
I have been working on stuff like this... and I suspect I used the word
hypocrisy back in 2004 or earlier, when the Invariant Sections of the GFDL
came to light (AJ Towns took the geniunely bizarre view that they were
non-free but should be allowed in 'main' for sarge without amending the
Social Contract). :-) You would be shocked at when the kernel 'BLOBs'
were discovered -- it's even earlier.
> I used to believe that Debian only included legal, DFSG-free software
> in main, but "cdrtools" fiasco seems to prove that I was wrong.
You've been proved wrong long ago. Luckily, I really think that there are
relatively few "contaminated" packages (they just happen to be relatively
high-profile, important ones). There are probably more where
upstream has messed up its licensing but will be happy to fix it.
One good thing: the cdrtools maintainers have requested that it be removed.
Work is ongoing to get decent replacements. This *will* be fixed.
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@fastmail.fm>
Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it.
So why isn't he in prison yet?...
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