Re: What it means to be Debian
Dominik George writes ("Re: What it means to be Debian"):
> I strongly support that. I also do *not* think that everyone who uses
> non-free services or the like should leave Debian or is neitrely bad for
> the community.
>
> Mostly, I *personally* do not find those people authentic enough to
> uphold any such community standard. It's somewhat like donating to a
> species conservation organisation, taking the money from a purse made of
> crocodile skin. It's quite impossible to take it seriously.
I find it difficult to express my disagreement with the your views,
and your attitude, with the respect that is due to a fellow
contributor. But I will try.
Firstly, I need to say that I am a firm believer in the need for free
(libre) services, not just in free software development, but
generally. I try to use free services whenever possible; I have made
contributions to free services of various kinds; and my own code is
often AGPL-licenced.
However, there are situations where it can be difficult or impossible
to achieve one's goals without compromise. Then we get into questions
of tradeoffs.
The tradeoffs are sometimes purely practical: is this service likely
to lose my data / sell me down the river / annoy me beyond reason ?
The tradeoffs are also often ethical: is my use of this service going
to make it harder for other people not to use it ? Am I contributing
to the service's financial health or social legitimacy ?
So I'm not saying that it is never right to criticise someone else's
use of a non-free service. But it goes far too far to say that anyone
who ever uses a non-free service is beyond the pale. (Do you yourself
not use non-free web search engines ?)
Furthermore, while software freedom is the (or at least the main)
purpose of Debian, there are more important things in life and in the
world than software freedom. I'm sure you can think of several.
On a practical level, an absolutist attitude like the one you are
demonstrating is fatal to any campaign which aims to change the world.
To change the world, we need allies and supporters. That necessarily
includes many people who don't agree with everything we stand for, and
many people whose priorities are different to ours.
We must be able to make common cause to work constructively with
people in the areas where we agree with them. That means treating
them respectfully and avoiding unnecessary attacks on them about the
areas where we do not agree.
Concretely, this means, for example:
If someone is using Gmail to write to us, we should refrain from
derailing their attempts to contribute with what they will see as a
side issue. Raising that as an issue during the initial contact from
someone new to our community and our aims is neither effective, nor
respectful.
If someone suggests that we as should adopt some kind of proprietary
service, or invites us to share our data in a way we don't like, we
explain politely (with reference perhaps to Mako's excellent article)
why we will decline.
In no case should we describe contributors or genuine enquirers as
`inauthentic', `unable to uphold our community standards', or having a
`serious illness' because they disagree with us.
Thanks,
Ian.
PS: I completely agree with what Sam Hartman has written in this
thread.
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