Re: Non-Constitutional Voting Procedure
On Sun, Oct 29, 2000 at 03:11:11PM +1100, Peter Eckersley wrote:
> > John's proposal is, IMO, a reaction to a growing movement within Debian
> > against the DFSG. I do believe that movement exists and has always
> > existed to some degree, but it's on the rise as Linux gains in popularity
> > and new people care less and less about the free foundation on which
> > Debian stands. They are the people who wanted to split non-free into
> > non-cd and non-free. They're the people who think the DFSG is too
> > restrictive, and they're a part of the group who believe Debian can't
> > divorce itself of non-free software now. (In fact, they don't believe it
> > could or should do so ever..)
> >
> There may be some examples of individuals who have the attitude you
> describe, but I think your overall analysis of the situation may be
> incorrect. You are confusing *pragmatic* support for an ideological
> position with not supporting that position at all...
>
> Please tell me if you can explain why this is not the case.
There are certainly those in the project who are simply concerned about
removing software with no good free alternatives, however several of us
feel that the number of people who disagree with the DFSG's standards and
wish to lower them is on the rise over the past couple of years. True or
not, it feels that way.
I believe it feels that way because it's true. And I believe we should
resist that. But not by throwing out software we're not ready to replace.
I'm sure there will always be non-free software some people need as long
as there are people who believe they can make more money that way. Right
now, that group is the majority and we should not make life intentionally
harder for them if they want to run that software with Debian.
Netscape is the glaringly obvious example. There are a few browsers that
promise to be better, but they're not ready yet IMO. I'd like to revisit
the question later - but for now the answer to whether or not to remove
non-free software from Debian's servers is unfortunately no for now. I
propose we seek measures which feel less like knee-jerk reactions.
Personally, I'd be happy leaving non-free where it is for now and removing
the limiting language from the social contract. When we agree it's time
for non-free to go, let us get rid of it then.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
Feb 5 13:27:01 trinity lp0 on fire
-- the Linux kernel, alerting me that there was some unknown
problem with my printer (ie, it was out of ink)
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