I say this not because I care, but because it seemed polite to summarise
the IRC `debate' for those not on at the time. And if I get do it, I get
to bias it my way. So. What the hell... :)
On Wed, May 05, 1999 at 12:57:58AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Anthony> On Tue, May 04, 1999 at 10:53:14PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >> Imagine when a group of people say "Hey, call us using
> >> foo-grubble, and we can have a neat game". And we have to say, sorry,
> >> no can do, I use linux, and I am unable to do that.
> Anthony> Not exactly. You'd have to say "Sorry, no can do, I don't
> Anthony> like having anything to do with non-free software, at all,
> Anthony> so I refuse to be a part of that."
> Your choice. I prefer proving that Linux can do anything, only
> better. And this is free software as far as the DFSG is concerned.
Which is a good reason to point Apt at contrib and non-free, so you can
get things like Netscape and StarOffice and whatever else. `main' isn't
solely about usefulness -- it's about freedom too. I'd go so far as to
say that it is in fact *more* about freedom.
> Anthony> After all, by installing something from contrib, you haven't
> Anthony> suddenly turned your machine into a Windows 95 box, or
> Anthony> anything. You're still running Debian GNU/Linux, you've just
> Anthony> installed some extra stuff that depends on non-free software
> Anthony> for its functionality.
> It is the priciple of the thing. You have decided to throw
> free software out of debian cause it (horrors) talks to some
> proprietary software running somewhere on the net
Not just because it `talks to it', but because it is completely useless
without that non-free software.
> Anthony> If I may quote from the social contract:
>
> >> 1. Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software
> >>
> >> We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free
> >> software. As there are many definitions of free software, we include
> >> the guidelines we use to determine if software is "free" below.
>
> Bingo. Tik does not fail any of the criteria above. Why are
> you throwing it out?
Because it fails some of the criteria below, at least the way I read them.
> >> 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.
>
> Anthony> And here's the issue under discussion: TiK depends on an
> Anthony> item of non-free software for its functionality. It doesn't
> Anthony> depend on it as heavily as KDE used to (does, whatever),
> Anthony> but, in at least some sense, it still *needs* non-free
> Anthony> software to be useful.
>
> Look up the word system. NTFS does not make the system depend
> on non free software (or do you have a replacement for the kernel?
> (try creating an NTFS file system without using non-free
> software). Bah.
Installing tya (in contrib/devel, the Java JIT, which depends on the
non-free jdk package) doesn't make the `system' depend on non-free
software; it just makes that single part of the system contained in
the package depend on it.
And when I say depend on it, I mean that it's completely unfunctional
without the jdk.
As is TiK, without the AOL server.
> Anthony> I must admit I don't really care about this. We're not
> Anthony> stopping anyone from doing anything -- TiK can still be
> Anthony> packaged, still mirrored, still distributed by CD, you name
> Anthony> it. We're not saying that we can't or won't distribute it,
> Anthony> we're not even saying that it's bad, all we're saying is
> Anthony> that you can't use it without non-free software.
> You are throwing it out of Debian. Contrib is not part of
> Debian. read the social contract.
Yes, I am. Big deal. Who does it hurt?
The people who run Debian who want a functional system, in spite of some
alleged impurities? No, they can just buy a contrib CD as well as a main
CD, or point Apt at main and contrib and non-free.
The people who run Debian who obsess about freedom and stuff? No, because
they wouldn't want TiK anyway, it's obviously just an attempt by AOL to
pervert the community and make the dependant upon proprietry standards. Hell,
it even *benefits* them, because they'll have all the software they don't
like hidden away from them because they don't select either contrib or
non-free.
What about the people who are more moderate, and are only obsessing
about freedom on their own machine? Well, they can quite happily just
point Apt at main and contrib, and ignore packages that dselect can't
fulfill the dependencies of, and only install things like TiK which might
require non-free stuff elsewhere, but don't require it *here*, dammit.
> Anthony> And yes, I realise there's a distinction between "without non-free
> Anthony> software running on some other machine" and "without non-free software
> Anthony> running on *your* machine". I don't see it as being a particularly
> Anthony> crucial distinction, though.
> I think there is. I think the latter is free, and we need
> to encourage it, so someday we may have all free systems
I might add that I think TiK's free too. I just don't think it's suitable
for main, in much the same way I don't think most of what's in contrib is
suitable for main.
Some other notes:
Yes, this ought to apply to things like LILO too. I mean, it relies on
a BIOS to be installed, and such, doesn't it? And what about ifconfig
and friends -- there aren't any free Ethernet firmware things are there?
And, at least as far as I'm aware, no there aren't. I'm not sure this
really matters though. The GPL's been willing to exempt system software
for ages (forever, one presumes), and I'm certainly willing to exempt
firmware and BIOSes and kin from this sort of rule. If we get to a point
where we don't have to, that's great, but ignoring other issues isn't
going to help us here.
Additionally, the kernel includes code to interface with proprietry
servers or proprietry clients. (Or so I'm told -- I don't really know
what I'm talking about here, I should warn you) So surely it should be
stuffed in contrib too? Here I'm inclined to think that the appropriate
answer is to split up .deb's, so that, eg, ntfs-modules.deb would be in
contrib, while kernel-image.deb, would still be in main. If it can't be
split up, and it doesn't depend on it (ie, it's still useful without it),
I'm happy to say that that's bad, but essentially ignore it. [0]
Finally, there's also the argument that since you just don't know
what's at the other end, how can you really tell if there's a free server?
And isn't netcat free, can't it act as a free server with just a `bit' of
configuration, anyway?
I think it's reasonable to rely on the maintainer and release manager
to act reasonably when a free server exists that doesn't work quite
properly out of the box (an ICQ server that crashes when there are
more than three users, and sends messages to everyone instead of just
the person it's meant to go to, or similar, say) rather than just
saying "Look, this isn't good enough, they can stay in contrib you
*loser*!!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!" or whatever.
So as a practical measure, I think we could do this in a consistent and
fair manner; and as a moral measure, I think this matches our social
contract. As a utility measure, I don't think this really affects anyone,
except to give the people who *really* care a little more information.
As a political measure, it's not quite so convincing. Yes, we get to
put a bit more pressure on people who are half freeing stuff; but on
the other hand, raising the bar just as people are being introduced to
the free software high jump is a little bit heartless.
Personally, I think it's worthwhile -- if nobody is willing to stand
up and say "freedom on the client side only is good, but it's not good
enough, dammit", I think we'll end up with people thinking that freedom
on the client side only *is* good enough.
Cheers,
aj
[0] This is much the same issue as cardinfo in the pcmcia-cs
package. cardinfo used to depend on the xforms library, which is
non-free. It stayed in main with a Suggests: libxforms until people
complained enough at which point it was changed to use fltk.
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``Smart, sexy, single. Pick any two (you can't have all three).''
-- RFC 1925, paraphrased: a guide to networking in the '90s
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