On Sat, Jul 03, 1999 at 10:41:49PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> > choices. What's the point of people choosing free software if they
> > didn't choose it but rather had it forced on them?
> >
> > People call you a socialist, this is exactly why. Who are you to tell me
>
> Whoa! This is not at all correct. Not even close. For your
> convenience, here is the definition of socialist:
[.. dictionary snipped, I can read ..]
> Now, just where is Mr. Stallman advocating state ownership of
> anything?! He's trying to advocate FREE software, not software
> controlled by governments!
He has advocated government control. Provided that their control causes
only software that is free to be produced.
> > what my morals should be? Give me the information and the tools, then
>
> Please don't go down that path. Simple logic indicates that this
> ethical relativist argument is not at all valid. Without going into a
> formal proof, let me use two textbook examples which ought to prove
> the point:
>
> 1. slavery
> 2. Nazi-ism
I think this is the point at which I invoke godwin's law, isn't it?
> In both of these cases, we (rightly!) reserve the right to criticize
> the people holding those particular ethics as incorrect. Thus
> Stallman has every right to criticize your ethics as incorrect (and
> you his). The rest of your message, in fact, goes on to critize his
> ethics, yet you seek to critize him for similar criticisms of yours.
> This seems at least a tad hypocritical, if not significantly so.
I have no problem with his ethics UNTIL he believes he has the right to
dictate what I may or may not choose.
> > Consider me corrupt if you like because I won't suffer when a suitable
> > free program isn't available to replace the non-free one works for now
> > until the free program works, I won't be hurt by it. However when you
> > try to take away my right to choose that non-free package because you
> > don't like me using it, I get annoyed. You don't have to go out of your
>
> I don't see him trying to revoke any "right". He's telling you that
> you are making the ethically wrong choice, not that the choice is not
> yours to make. You are given the choice, and perhaps you choose in
> error; but what use would there be for ethics if there were no choices
> anyway?
He IS trying to take that choice away! If you can't even find out that a
choice is available, it isn't. When I started college the first two
terms were completely pointless classes. I learned nothing and was bored
to tears. I found out midway through the second term that I could have
challenged each and every class I'd taken so far 5 months earlier and I
would have been able to take something meaningful. At that point it was
too late, but people insisted the choice WAS there. Except I didn't know
about it---so it wasn't there for me.
Richard has admitted he wants to do this with free software and with
Debian. He wants non-free software to be so hard to find that if the
only information available is Debian's own, people will never know that
free software is available and packaged for Debian.
I'm extremely opposed to hiding our problems.
> > I check the files in /usr/doc---nope, no references.
> > I check apt's configuration file---nope, nothing.
> > I check the web pages---no references, search function returns nothing.
> > I nose around the ftp site with my nice free ftp client, nothing.
> >
> > At this point I'm thinking where the hell is netscape? Why did Debian
>
> Well this is a particularly bad example since all one has to do is go
> to www.netscape.com and get a copy.
Not in a Debian package. If all someone has to do is go to id software
to get quake, why is it packaged? If someone has only to go to netscape
to get navigator, why is it packaged? UW and pine? pgpi and gpg?
wherever the hell it comes from for ssh?
Indeed, why package anything? It's all available someplace else. Your
dismissal of my argument is flawed.
> > What you then asked us to do is exactly what you said you wouldn't ask us
> > to do. You want us to STOP supporting non-free software. You want us to
>
> We never have supported non-free software, and as long as I'm a part
> of the project, we won't. Note that even you agree that non-free
> software is not a part of Debian. If this is the case, how do you
> think we are supporting it?
>
> Note that we do not support non-free software; the Contract explicitly
> acknowledges that it is not a prt of Debian. We merely acknowledge
> that it is possible to use non-free software on Debian ("support its use").
You're referring to this:
5. Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards
We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of programs that
don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created
"contrib" and "non-free" areas in our FTP archive for this software.
The software in these directories is not part of the Debian system,
although it has been configured for use with Debian. 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. Thus, although non-free software isn't a part of Debian, we
support its use, and we provide infrastructure (such as our
bug-tracking system and mailing lists) for non-free software packages.
It looks like it says we'll support the software to me... It even goes
so far as to say that we'll provide access to it and encourage CD vendors
to distribute parts of it (this last part _I_ support changing, I don't
think we should actively encourage non-free software...)
> > You want us to hide non-free software from our users. Doing so would be
> > a direct violation of our social contract which says we'd support our
> > users' use of non-free software. Of course we could change the social
>
> Nowhere does it say that we have to stick a sign in people's faces
> indicating that non-free software is straight ahead.
So you support hiding it from people too?
> > contract. We could, but I don't want to stick around to clean up the PR
> > nightmare it would create the second someone like slashdot or LWN reports
>
> Sheesh! Again a marketdroid argument. When are we going to stop
> seeing things like this? Are you seriously advocating that we let
> marketing take control rather than quality or ethical concerns?
Of course, you have ignored the point so you can dismiss the rest of the
message as marketing.
> > An essential part of freedom is choice. You want to take that away.
>
> You haven't even come close to showing that.
...and people say I can't see. Eeesh. You would not consider the
argument valid if RMS told us to delete all non-free packages and never
package anything non-free again. And even then you would defend his
actions in the name of freedom. Even though you'd be squashing it.
You're welcome to try and burn Debian in order to save it. Just don't
get too pissed off when someone like me dumps a bucket of water on your
fire.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer
PGP: E8D68481E3A8BB77 8EE22996C9445FBE The Source Comes First!
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<Culus> OH MY GOD NOT A RANDOM QUOTE GENERATOR
<netgod> surely you didnt think that was static? how lame would that be?
:-)
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