Re: Debian and GitLab Open Source Partnership
On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 08:23:21PM -0400, Donald Norwood wrote:
>...
> On 7/25/21 12:19 PM, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:
> >
> > Out of the blue, without any more context and content, I am not sure to
> > be happy with this news.
> >
> > To me, such a partnership is something quite stronger than sponsorship
> > and I'd be a bit ill-at-ease with it being done without the whole Debian
> > Members being consulted.
> > ...
>
> Apologies if you thought this was out of the blue, we are currently and
> still in the process of bringing the awareness of the partnership to the
> community prior to the main announcement, but as with any news it is
> about the timing of the message delivery.
>
> Rest assured there were several hands on our side that went into the
> initial discussions from Debian Partners to DebConf Sponsors, to the
> DPL, and Press, all of us tasked with seeing things through that will
> benefit the project.
>...
Debian as a project actively promoting open core software would be quite
a change since so far Debian was the major distribution pushing the most
for a system with only free software as defined by the Debian Free
Software Guidelines.
The Social Contract we all agreed to states that "Our priorities are our
users and free software".
There are many developers, and also many companies some of them close to
Debian, for whom fully free software is a mission.
Debian promoting a company with an open core business model is a slap
in the face for many people.
Why has such a major change for the whole project not been discussed
with all developers?
> Be well,
>
> -Donald
cu
Adrian
BTW:
It is clear that open core software whose open source version is under a
DFSG-free licence is welcome in Debian, users are free to use non-free
software on Debian, and mentioning sponsors at an appropriate place has
not been controversial.
Reply to: