This one time, at band camp, Øystein Gisnås said: > I got a request from a Skype employee who was eager to distribute > Skype with Debian. I replied that the current license probably is not > compatible with DFSG and promised to ask debian-legal what has to be > done with Skype's license to make it distributable. > > In it's current form, I don't think Skype is suitable even for > non-free. So the primary question is "What has to change in Skype's > license to make it distributable in non-free?", with the secondary > question being the same for main. Even if Skype's license terms weren't so onerous that distribution in non-free was an option, I want to say that I think it's a bad idea to try to include it in any part of Debian. The point of non-free, in my mind, is that there are certain areas of interest where free software just has not caught up or cannot compete with non-free software at the moment (particular examples used to be Netscape, and are probably currently things like flash; other areas might be things like CAD software, should someone find one that is redistributable). VoIP is well supported by free software. Debian is really not well served by promoting a company so uninterested in giving back to the community. We are much better served by promoting the adoption of the currently exiting open standards and protocols that already exist in this area. If there are interoperability, stability, or functionality problems in the free frameworks, I urge you to work on those rather than expending effort on promoting non-free alternatives. Thanks for reading so far, -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ,''`. Stephen Gran | | : :' : sgran@debian.org | | `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer | | `- http://www.debian.org | -----------------------------------------------------------------
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