Re: RFD: amendment of Debian Social Contract
On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 09:17:18AM +0100, Peter Makholm wrote:
> >> It might be a cultural issue but it is, for me, perfectly
> >> sane to say:
> >> 1. This is what I believe.
> > "That Debian should be 100% free" ?
Is that what you believe or not? It's what the proposed social
contract says. It what the current social contract says in part, but
that interpretation is disqualified because it's contradicted in the
same document.
> >> 2. This is how I make them true in the most optimal way.
> > "By including non-free stuff in Debian" ?
> The status of non-free as part of Debian does not change from being
> not a part of Debian (right now) to being part of Debian by removing
> it from the Social Contract. That would be an absurd interpratation of
> the proposal.
Huh? Of course the status of non-free changes. Right now its status is
that its mandated to be included by the social contract, and can't be
removed without the social contract being changed. The whole *point*
of this discussion and proposed GR is to change its status.
Again, do you think Debian should be 100% about free software? Is that
your belief?
If so, how do you think goal is achieved by distributing non-free
software?
If not, don't you think the social contract should avoid giving the
impression that we're committed to that? There are other, related, things
we could commit to instead of being "100% free", such as "creating a
free operating system, as well as doing other things", or "promoting
free software".
> So this is a bit of a strawman and has nothing to do with the
> consistency of my opinion. The Social Contract has always had this
> twist and I don't see any *new* problems in this respect with Brandens
> proposal.
Well, yes, it's obvious that you don't see any new problems. I've pointed
out some -- that the "100%" thing already makes people thing that Debian
shouldn't be doing non-free stuff, that's only ameliorated by our actually
saying in the same document that we will distribute non-free; and that
removing that later statement at least is misleading and confusing,
and at worst is exceedinly hypocritical. How about an explanation of
why that's not a problem, or at least thinking about ways of writing
the social contract that makes sense to both of us?
> Quite contrary I see the present contract to say: We will remain 100%
> free [Software, but it doesn't matter here] and we promise to support
> non-free software. With Brandens proposal we could say: We will remain
> 100% free and when our goals is served by doing so we will provide
> infrastructure for integrating non-free with Debian.
How is the goal of being 100% free not *actively contradicted* by
distributing non-free software? That's always been blatantly non-sensical,
but at least at the moment it's clearly an issue of poor wording, not
outright hypocrisy.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
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