Re: Why doesn't debian remove the proprietary software from it's servers?
On Wed, 27 Apr 2011, sdc wrote:
> Greetings, I was reading FSF distro review and I was shocked to see that
> Debian isn't actually free software. FSF said that they are making a big
Don't be. We don't think FSF always provides free software either: we
consider documentation as part of the software it is distributed with, and
we do not consider documentation with GFDL invariant sections to be free
enough to meet our freeness requirements for software. Unfortunately almost
all GNU documentation has such GFDL invariant sections.
That documentation ends up in the non-free archive the FSF objects to, BTW.
> My beginner question is, why doesn't Debian remove the proprietary software
> hosted on it's servers? Don't they want to follow the FSF word?
No, we don't want to follow the FSF word. Debian has a good relationship
with the FSF, but we don't agree on everything. We are not followers, and
neither is the FSF. The path we both walk is not too far apart, but it is
not the same.
Debian is about this:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
We do ask first if the user wants to use non-free software or not. We do
not call that non-free software part of the Debian system, either.
You will not install non-free software in your Debian system unless you
explicitly tell the installer that you want to, or take action yourself to
configure the system to fetch that non-free software later.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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