Re: Non-Constitutional Voting Procedure
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 04:06:27PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> As an example of what falls in the category covered by section 5,
> which is not commercial: if we have some software that has a "you can
> have the source, and you can give away the source or binaries for free,
> but you can't distribute modified source without special permission"
> license -- especially if they've given Debian special permission --
> that would go in non-free.
>
> Also, for this context, section 1 basically says that we won't make
> anything in our distribution depend on stuff in non-free. [Which means
> that stuff in contrib, which depends on stuff in non-free, should never
> be a part of our official distribution -- it shouldn't be on our official
> cdroms.]
What it says is "We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution
entirely free software". My contention is that the mirror network constitutes
a distribution system and therefore the materials it moves constitute the
"Debian GNU/Linux Distribution". The first article seems to represent an
axiomatic statement of our core mission and the fifth mainly a statement of
"support" to the commercial community. In truth, the specifics that the
fifth article go into regarding directories and methods of access really
don't make sense in a "Social Contract". The rest of the statements logically
belong in such a statement of purpose, the fifth should be boiled down to
a philosophical direction.
> Finally, if FTP really becomes obsolete, that doesn't contradict
> section 5. However, FTP is no more obsolete than SMTP. [It doesn't
> represent the majority of traffic on the internet, but people still use
> it for quite a lot.]
I was not saying that FTP would become obsolete, I was saying that CDs will
become obsolete.
--
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Ean Schuessler An odorless programmer work-a-like
Brainfood, Inc. Silent and motionless
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