Re: weekly policy summary
***** MS => Manoj Srivastava
MS> If only it were as simple as that. This issue has been brought up
MS> on the lists, and, IIRC, it was quite controversial.
It is controversial indeed, does this also mean we can't try and have
it decided?
DGMS> My vote is for free packages not being allowed to reference
DGMS> non-free packages in any way, neither Recommends or Depends nor
DGMS> Suggests.
MS> I am not comfortable with that, sorry.
I think we should focus on building a free OS. If other projects or
companies want to use it to build something mixed (non-free software
on top of our free OS), that's fine. But our stated aim is precisely
to build a completely free OS; so, while some of us engage themselves
providing our users non-free package --- which is also a good thing,
if people are willing to do it --- Debian (i.e., main) should stand by
itself, without references to external non-free software. At least,
this is our goal, I believe.
DGMS> BTW, I'd go even further: I'd suggest every free package
DGMS> maintainer not to mention non-free software at all in our
DGMS> descriptions, scripts, and so on. I'm a bit disappointed
DGMS> noting a lot of our packages out there that talk about one
DGMS> commercial product or another in the Debian diffs.
MS> I am even less comfortable with this.
Admittedly my statements in the paragraph you quoted here above are
a provocation. Think of them as a good suggestion, not as a something
that should be policy.
MS> Extremist positions do not do well to drive consensus. I thik
MS> this issue may well be too controversial for us to deal with in
MS> this forum.
I welcome lesser extremist position to have some discussion, then we
could go ahead and propose something that accommodates as many of us as
possible while preserving the spirit of our project.
I think this is a good forum for this discussion --- last time we
tried it on debian-devel we could not reach a consensus due to some
flames, maybe here we could try and be cooler. :-)
MS> We have to strike a balance between the good to the community
MS> done by freeing software, and catering to the needs of our users
MS> by providing a system that is the most capable out there, and
MS> recognozing that some of our users do use software that does not
MS> meet our guidelines. I think allowing suggestions in fee software
MS> is condusive to those goal, and totally in line with those
MS> sentiments.
It's a good think that some of us are willing to help our users
providing non-free packages, but this should not affect the main
Debian goal in any way, which I feel is not the present situation.
Beside, why don't we leave this catering to some external body? I'm
sure there are companies out there interested in this topic very
capable of doing it well.
MS> Since we do recognize that some users have to sue software that
MS> may be non free, and we have committed to support our users who
MS> develop and run non-free software on Debian, we can do no less.
Support is a key word indeed. We should just support, not encourage,
nor have our project (i.e., Debian, or what we sometimes call `main')
directly interwoven with something that is not a part of it, and could
never become it for our very choice.
MS> amazed to be arguing on the opposite side for once
Surprising. ;-)
Let me say I'm not a fanatic (as far as I can see), and I don't plan
to bomb non-free software supporters, nor users. :-)
I hope we can argue in a safe way and finally reach some conclusion,
be it what I desire or not. What I ask for is that such a conclusion
be clearly stated some where, so all of us could become aware of that,
including newcomers: I feel is is really important to understand how
far Debian is willing to go in its involvement with non-free software.
As ever, it's not very exciting to realize that what you actually do
doesn't match what you expected to, so better know it before engaging
yourself.
Regards,
--
Davide G. M. Salvetti - IW5DZC [JN53fr] - <http://www.linux.it/%7Esalve/>
<http://www.gnu.org/> * <http://www.debian.org/> * <http://www.linux.org>
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