Re: PINE Debian Package
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Santiago Vila wrote:
>
> Not Debian, because Debian is a free software Linux distribution, and pine
> is non-free. This is like saying that not having Microsoft Word as part
> of Debian is giving both Microsoft and Debian a bad reputation ;-)
That is what the non-free portion of the distribution is for. BTW, if
Microsoft produced Word for Linux, I would probably buy it.
>
> It could give "bad reputation" on the eyes of those who think that Debian
> is just "one more Linux distribution". But considering that Debian is 100%
> free, I don't see any bad reputation on the Debian side, really.
The way it has always been understod was that the "main" portion of the
distribution would always be 100% free. Non-free stuff goes in non-free
and stuff that is free but depends on non-free stuff goes in contrib. If
Debian wants to make non-free a source-only archive, it is going to
greatly increase my costs for installing systems because I happen to be a
fan of quite a few things in there.
>
> > They are going to keep losing users if they keep this
> > stupid "No patched binaries" thing up. It does nothing but to show how
> > stubborn, non-trusting and "non-free" (libre) they are, and it has become so
> > much of a frustration that many of us here choose to use mutt instead.
>
> Not our fault, I think.
Yes, our fault. If any distribution of software takes a political stand
and alienates half of its users or makes the distribution more difficult
to use or more difficult to configure and it looses a significant number
of its users and fails to attract new users at the rate it did before, it
soon fades into insignificance. Choosing it simply because it is
politically correct is not going to happen except for a few zelots. I
thought the rise and fall of world socialism taught you that. You might
provide a free application but if it sucks or if there is a better
non-free one available, guess which one will get used. If you think making
the non-free one more difficult to obtain will drive development toward
the free application, you are making a flawed decision. People will simply
expend more energey to get the better product and if they have to do it
too often will call your product junk because it requires the expense of
too much energy to get the good applications.
>
> People should know that pine is not free. I would switch to mutt right now
> but I'm already very used to pine, so everything I can do is to recommend
> mutt over pine to my friends.
Everyone KNOWS Pine is not free. It has ALWAYS lived in non-free. Free is
not the issue. Pine is BETTER. If a newbie asks me for advice on a good,
easy to use, text-based mail reader I am NOT going to say "Use mutt,
because it is free", I am going to say "Use Pine because it is easy". I
would like to see many more COMMERCIAL apps for Linux too. When someone
comes out with a half-baked free replacement for StarOffice is Debian
going to drop the StarOffice loader from the distro? WHat about the nifty
config for alien that knows how to install Applixware? Will that go away
too? This crap of "My system is difficult to use, a horror to configure
and klunky as hell, but I am a Good Communist and use only software
approved by the Central Committee" will not fly far. Again, if free is to
be a substitute for good, oh well.
> RMS has tried it several times, I think, without any success.
Amazing how Netscape's release turns RMS from crackpot to saint, isn't it?
George Bonser
If I had a catchy quip, it would be here.
http://www.debian.org
Debian/GNU Linux ... the maintainable operating system.
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