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Re: [Proposal] Revised Social Contract



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|
|I propose the following resolution:
|
|We will replace our social contract with two documents, as specified
|by the recent constitutional amendment.  The first replacement document
|will be the social contract below, and the second replacement document
|will be the Debian Free Software Guidelines extracted from the remainder
|of the original social contract.
|
|Here's the replacement for the social contract:
|
|
|Debian's Social Contract
|
|The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common
|cause to create a free operating system.  This is the "social contract"
|we offer to the free software community.
| 
|  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 
|"Social Contract" with the Free Software Community
| 
|  1. Debian will remain 100% free software`
|
|     Debian exists to distribute a general purpose system composed of
|     entirely free software. As there are many definitions of free
|     software, we use the "Debian Free Software Guidelines" to determine
|     if software is free. We will also support our users who develop
|     and run other software on Debian -- free or non-free -- but we will
|     never make the system depend on an item of non-free software.
|
|  2. We will give back to the free software community
|
|     When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license
|     them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
|     We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be
|     widely distributed and used. We will communicate things such
|     as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the "upstream"
|     authors of works included in our system.
|
|  3. We will not hide problems
|
|     We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view
|     at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become
|     visible to others.
|
|  4. Our priorities are our users and free software
|
|     We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software
|     community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We
|     will support the needs of our users for operation in many different
|     kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free
|     works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to
|     charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow
|     others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and
|     other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals,
|     we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with
|     no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system.
|
|  5. Programs that don't meet our free-software standards
|
|     We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of software
|     that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We
|     support interoperability standards such as "Linux System Base", and
|     will accept bug reports where our system violates those standards.
|     To make our system more attractive to people with mild dependencies
|     on non-free software, we have created "contrib" and "non-free" areas
|     in our internet archive. The software in these directories is not
|     needed by most people, and we do not guarantee all software in the
|     non-free area may be distributed in other ways. Thus, although
|     we're working to reduce people's dependence on non-free software,
|     we support users who are still dependent. Additionally, we will
|     work to find, package and support free alternatives to non-free
|     software so people who use only free software can work with users
|     of non-free software.

I second this proposal.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
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