Debian should focus on common grounds ....
Hi,
Here is my thought.... Debian is not about voting but about free software.
I am sick of seeing too many votes/policy-discussion/... to force other
volunteers to obey particular action patters. Basic principle of this
project should be more inclusive one and volunteer one. It should not
be a one of exclusion and enforcement. Volunteer project should be
based on coercion.
Logically-looking arguments to overturn some one else's judgement and
limit some one else's action is not constructive way to run volunteer
project.
As human, we all are so prone to "absolutely right" position statements
by itself. They look good. Making ourself bound by such beautiful
words are risky move. We should make judgement for our action based on
more practical issues which are more tangible and easily to be agreed.
(E.g., "Release lenny soon" vs. "Wait forever".) Voting system itself
will not answer these issues as we saw. We still need human to make
choices for voting.
We all know SC4: "Our priorities are our users and free software" can
lead us to situation where these priorities can conflict with themselves
depending on how we judge priorities of "our users" or who those "users"
are. What we do not agree is where we draw this line between
priorities. This is not a bug but it is a great feature of our SC to
address different spectrum of participants.
When this conflict happens, those who face these issues as acting
volunteers should make reasonable compromise such as time when we
created non-free section and lived happily together. That is technical
solution to the social issue with inclusive attitude from both sides.
I do not see firmware inclusion opponents made significant efforts to
create functioning DSFG free firmware (I know it is unpractical in some
case). If most people of release team thinks it important and worthy to
include firmware for "user", let them do it since we are not excluding
free firmwares.
If some parts of release team think it important to have release CDs
without firmwares and less capabilities for principle, let them build it
and offer them via Debian. I have no objection to it and I am sure no
one object to it.
I do not see reason for non-active developers on d-i to make judgement
on how d-i is created.
It does not look constructive to force one's judgement to others via
voting system on these issues.
Also, I am not so keen to have too many special cases. Firmware only
special archive or GFDL only document archive does not look attractive.
All softwares in non-free are there for "users" because free alternative
did not satisfy "user" per some DD's judgement. If some Debian
sub-projects need them for "user", let them include non-free part for
their work.
Exclusion attitudes will only narrow our user/developer base and
benefits none of us whatever opinion we have. We should thrive to find
common ground.
Regards,
Osamu
PS: Free software is about thanking others to offer their work for
free. Even for partially free softwares such as GFDL documents,
we should thanks them for their positive sides.
PPS: Recent discussion to limit frequency of posting privilege was
déjà vu for me. It is about time.
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