Re: General Resolution. Copied and Pasted Message from Developers Archive
Antonio Rodriguez wrote:
> The following is a message that I grabbed from the archives of
> developers' list, the ones with the power of vote about this or any
> other resolution. There are ideas here that are worth reading, so I
> decided to post it. Since it is in public domain, I hope Manoj doesn't
> mind.
> Antonio.
> %%%%%%%%%%% *************************************************
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%*******************************************
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>
> Hi,
>
> So far, we have always packages ``All the packages fit to
> package''. The only criteria has been that we be legally allowed to
> package software, and that some one finds it useful enough to spend
> the effort packaging it. Indeed, when we could not distribute the
> binaries, we created sourece only packages, or installer packages.
>
> It was, IMHO, a judicious mix of free software evengelism, and
> one of creating the *BEST* distribution, with all the useful
> software we could package. I could almost always find any software
> available out there already packaged for debian. We were the
> inclusive distribution, and we showed our comitment to free software
> by only bundling free software on our CD's, and our commitment to
> useful distribution and our social contract by packaging and
> supporting the other software that did not meet our guidelines but
> was useful to our users.
>
> I like the fact we can cater to people who like free software
> (never put non-free in your apt sources), as well as to people who
> just want a useful distribution -- and we can, gently, try to win
> them over to free alternatives wehre such exist. We offer a choice,
> we do not impose. We evangelize, we do not force.
>
> Those who think this does not help Debian obviously have not
> really thought it through.
>
> This GR is disturbin. It throws away the promises made in the
> social contract. It is exclusionary. It reduces the utility of Debian
> to a number of users, and thus would marginalize us into a non
> entity. And it makes us committed to the free distribution, as
> opposed to the best free distribution.
>
> I am not convinced that this is a good idea.
>
> manoj
> --
> As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every
> hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every
> manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and
> hacks, How many losses at Project MAC?
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>
> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
> 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
>
> --
> Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe debian-user-request@lists.debian.org < /dev/null
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%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% another posting pasted from same list:
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On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 10:31:21AM -0400, Branden Robinson wrote:
> A brave assertion. But then you have to think about this carefully-crafted
> document and wonder why it doesn't read like this:
>
> 5. We Will Support Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards
>
> We will maintain "contrib" and "non-free" areas in our FTP archive for
> this software. We encourage CD manufacturers to read the licenses of
> software packages in these directories and determine if they can
> distribute that software on their CDs. We will support the use of
> non-free software in Debian, and we will provide infrastructure (such as
> our bug-tracking system and mailing lists) for non-free software
> packages.
nice idea. i propose that we modify the Social Contract so that it does
say that.
Anyone willing to second this?
> So? Why doesn't it read like that?
an oversight. it seemed self-evident and obvious at the time.
craig
--
craig sanders
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