Re: Debian and non-free
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:24:18PM +0200, David Paleino wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:16:48 -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 06:12:08PM +0200, David Paleino wrote:
> > No. I agree with you, and actually proposed a General Resolution 8
> > years ago to get rid of non-free software:
> >
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2000/06/msg00549.html
> > http://www.debian.org/vote/2000/vote_0008
> >
I seem to recall this earlier, in 1999 when RMS first raised this:
Vanity googling amacater and RMS revealed the thread, including comments
by Ian Lynagh.
The installer now does almost exactly what I asked then :)
Essentially, this has gone backwards and forwards for years. Although
David's wording is good, now is not the time - we need to get Lenny out.
gNewsense being based on Ubuntu (itself non-free from RMS' viewpoint)
seems just plain wrong to me - but that's me. It is notable that Mark
Shuttleworth has effectively ceased work on Gobuntu which is the Ubuntu
parallel.
> Instead of removing non-free, I'd support the idea of non-free.org, and if that
> will make the FSF endorse us again, why not? :)
>
> Non-free is there just because the free counterparts aren't optimal. Someday
> these will, and non-free will just disappear from Debian :)
>
At this point, the pain of setting up parallel infrastructure and so on
will outweigh the gain. Situations with binary firmware blobs are
becoming better, though the path to full freedom is probably asymptotic
:)
Andy - running GNU/Linux :)
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