Re: The Gordian Knot (was Re: Negative Summary of the Split Proposal)
What I understand you want is a page, or set of pages, that just talk
about the "main" section and don't link to anywhere that talks about
contrib or non-free.
That is part of the issue: I would like to be able to refer people to
an official Debian web site, without thus referring people to the
non-free packages. This is not the whole of the issue because the web
is not the only interface people use to access the list of Debian
packages. What apt does is also important, and other interfaces
including (if my memory serves me) FTP.
This can be achieved in a few hours: mirror
www.debian.org, expunge references to contrib and non-free, and put
that page up somewhere. Perhaps http://(www.)?debian.gnu.org/ is an
appropriate address.
It's true that the GNU Project could set up its own Debian web site
with a modified version of the web pages. I don't want to do that,
for a few reasons:
* It would take more work (but that alone would not be fatal).
* It could appear like a hostile gesture towards Debian on the part of
GNU, and I don't feel good about that.
* It is important for the public to see Debian give more significance
to the DFSG, not just see that the GNU Project does.
* It would be less effective, since every time we say "We recommend
Debian", people would be likely to forget whatever URL we give them,
and just look for "the Debian web site".
* It would raise the question of what we do about the places
in the system distribution itself which refer to www.debian.org.
Would we change them? That would mean incompatibilizing various
packages.
So I would like to be able to recommend an Official Debian web page
with a natural name, to describe the Official Debian system--not make
GNU's Own Modified Debian Pages.
Kristoffer wrote:
I do feel that not mentioning non-free software at all would make the
Official Debian home page violate our social contract.
If you assume there is only one Debian home page, that makes things
difficult, because this page has to do things one way or the other.
But what if there are two Debian home pages, given equal importance?
If one of them refers to the non-free packages, and the other does
not, we could each take our pick of which one to point to; but the
existence of the former one would be substantial support for the
non-free packages, and it would satisfy item 5 of the Social Contract.
Another solution would be to have only one home page, with just an
obscure reference to the non-free packages. If it is obscure enough,
it won't be a problem. Kristoffer was moving in this direction with
his proposal:
In particular the Debian package format is completely open and supports
integration of non-free software onto Debian machines for those that need
it (and can live with the restrictions on distribution that it imposes).
Non-free software that has already been integrated by Debian developers
can be found on the
<A href="http://non-official.debian.org";>non-official</A> server.
But this is a rather blatant reference. It would have to be
more obscure.
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