On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:27:28 -0500, John Goerzen wrote: > On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:24:18PM +0200, David Paleino wrote: > > > vote :-) > > > > Probably :) > > If I were a DD (-- and I'm NM), I'd think a bit more before proposing a GR > > to *completely* remove non-free. Non-free is, for some users, necessary (I'd > > happily --purge flashplugin-nonfree, but I can't -- I need it [work, > > university, $foo]). > > Well, of course removing non-free from Debian and moving non-free to > non-free.org are pretty much the same thing, are they not? > > The question is whether Debian as an institution supports it, not > whether humans that happen to be Debian developers do so. You're right, point for you. > > Non-free is there just because the free counterparts aren't optimal. Someday > > these will, and non-free will just disappear from Debian :) > > I think otherwise. 8 years ago, people made the same arguments. Back > then it was things like Netscape, I think. Now we are talking flash. Now is different. IMVHO the world is slowly adopting free software. In this exact historical moment, we see laptops, netbooks and desktops sold by *vendors* with GNU/Linux (be it Ubuntu, Xandros, or the like) pre-installed. That's good news! I start hearing university colleagues, *Microsoft Windows* users, asking what Linux is (the more informed ask me about Ubuntu). Public institutions start using Free Software (be it just to contain costs!). This *is* a world changing, IMHO. In another 10 years (less, I hope!), the world will be more conscious about Free Software, and its principles. And everyone will be suspicious over closed-source. Am I a dreamer? > There's already a lot of stuff people use over at debian-multimedia.org and > it's not stopping people from getting to it. Nor should it. A simple line > in a config file and you've got access to flash, even if it's on > suspiciousserver.ru. I got your point here. But that's because people have grown up with Windows, MP3s, WMVs and MSN. I can promise my sons (I'm 21 -- it still takes a bit!) won't ever touch a closed-source software ;) -- and that's the generation that will support Free Software in the future. A generation which will grow up with our principles (be them the 4 freedoms according to FSF, also "expanded" to real life possibly) in mind. Ok ok, I stop here my mail. I'm starting dreaming ABetterWorld©, but probably it's just because I'm too tired and sleepy (23:38 here). Just my thoughts, David -- . ''`. Debian maintainer | http://wiki.debian.org/DavidPaleino : :' : Linuxer #334216 --|-- http://www.hanskalabs.net/ `. `'` GPG: 1392B174 ----|---- http://snipr.com/qa_page `- 2BAB C625 4E66 E7B8 450A C3E1 E6AA 9017 1392 B174
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