Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free
Steve Greenland <stevegr@debian.org> writes:
> > 5. Is it right to deprive people the ability and right to
> > fix or modify software that Debian distributes?
>
> The majority of software in non-free does not, in fact, limit these
> rights. It either limits the right to distribute such changes, or
> commercial use. So your questions would promote a change in what we will
> accept into non-free, not the removal of non-free.
That limits our rights too, you know. These questions are not a
proposal, they are put here to make people think (mostly rhetorical).
> > 6. Is it right for Debian to engage in activities that encourage
> > the spread of such ability- and right-depriving software?
>
> Others have argued that by distributing non-free programs, and marking
> them as such, we raise awareness of those programs non-free-ness, and
> promote either a change in the programs license or the developement of a
> replacement, If user's have to grab such programs from somewhere else,
> all they know is "it's not in the Debian archive", and may never read
> the license closely.
I feel that argument is extremely flimsy and see no reason that the
same could not apply to ftp.nonfreedebs.org or some such place.
> select non-free programs when the free choices are inadequate. Making
> it harder for them to find and use such packages doesn't remove their
I am not making it harder for them to find or use such packages. The
people that would advocate hiding or structural rearrangement may be
attempting to accomplish such a thing.
> > In either case, there is no net harm to the users or to the Free
> > Software community.
>
> This is true only if the time of our users is valueless. I don't believe
> that's true.
I don't believe that the 5 seconds it takes to update sources.list is
of such great harm that it offsets the benefits of better promoting
Free Software.
> You've written repeatedly that no harm is done our users by removing non-free,
> but I haven't seen a list of removing it benefits either them or the
> community. (I might easily have missed such a list in the multitude of
> postings...).
My proposal suggests that Debian should stand up for what is right.
We should stop providing a free distribution network to people that
write non-free software. When we do this, we draw attention to the
mass of quality Free Software that exists, and encourage people to
make software Free. We get better software, which allows users more
freedom.
I think that it is easier to see that higher-quality software, more
freedom, and less expense are good for our users. I think it is also
easy to see that this is good for the community.
-- John
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