Re: Candidate social contract amendments (part 1: editorial)
On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:10:49 +0000, Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> said:
> On Tue, Dec 30, 2003 at 02:56:27PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> > guidelines that we use to determine if a work is "free" in the
>> > document called the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We will
>> > support people who create or use non-free works on Debian, but we
>> > will never make the system require the use of a non-free
>> > component.
>>
>> No promise, implied or otherwise, that Debian itself will actually
>> follow these guidelines.
> What do you actually mean here? The DFSG is for determining whether
> a work is free; I don't see how "Debian itself will actually follow
> [them]" is anything but a type error, since "Debian itself" isn't
> software... unless you're referring to the stuff clause 2 deals with
> ("new components will be licensed [according to the DFSG]").
It is shorthand, that most non-pedantic people
understand. Hmm. Since you seem unable to, let me try and elucidate
in more anal terms, not not skipping the dotting of the i's and the
crossing of the t's.
> I think at least one of us has missed the point here.
Quite.
The current social contract starts out by affirming that we
shall keep the Debian distribution (which, often, is contracted to
just Debian, but hey) entirely free, and goes on to state what we
call free software. It further goes on to say that software written
by, or for, the Debian system by the project (well, perhaps, by the
humans who are members of the project, since we are being anal;l
retentive) shall also follow these guidelines (again, the Debian
system, for you information, is also contracted to just Debian, out
there in the boonies).
manoj
--
The reward of energy, enterprise, and thrift--is taxes.
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
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