Re: We *can* be Free-only
On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 11:24:22AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > We will no longer provide free worldwide distribution for software we
> > consider licensed unethically. We will no longer be a crutch for those
> > that seek to prosper from our lack of ethical courage.
>
> Well, that's nice. How would it be different to just providing main? How
> would it be less of a crutch to have developers and users routinely
> using software external to Debian from this new archive that is so
> often hypothesised?
Of course, anybody has the freedom to make whatever archive they like.
But we, as Debian, have the ability to control our own activities.
While we cannot (and should not) prevent others from doing things we
find distasteful, we are certainly capable of refraining from doing
those things ourselves.
> In addition, I don't see how you can reasonably claim that "we" consider
> non-free software to have been licensed unethically; I certainly don't,
> and the fact that Debian distributes it at all tends to indicate that
> Debian as a whole has not had any ethical problems. Personally, and I'm
Point taken, though it is sad to hear that.
> > It should be apparent that the cause of Free Software is not advanced by
> > promoting and supporting non-free.
>
> It's no such thing. There are at least three ways in which the converse
> is the case:
>
> * non-free allows us to establish an upstream/downstream relationship
> with authors of non-free software, which we can use to encourage
> authors to license their software more freely
This could still be possible for the maintainers at nonfree.org, or on
project mailing lists, or any number of other ways. Moreover, new
incentives (or disincentives) could become available.
> * making non-free software easily available as an add-on to a fully free
[ snip ]
It seems that both of these would hold either way.
> You're welcome to argue that, on balance, the Cause is better served by
> dropping non-free, but arguing that it's in no way advanced by non-free
> is patently untrue.
"Better served by dropping" seems the same as "not advanced by keeping"
to me; in any case, you may ascribe a macro view to the comment :-)
> > non-free part of our archive. Imagine, then, how much greator those
> > effects would be by completely banning that software from our project
> > until it gets a Free license!
>
> How about you provide some evidence for thinking it'd be greater,
> rather than just asking us to imagine it? Personally, I think it'd be
> marginally worse, since we have less opportunity to build a relationship
> with upstream.
I do not have any evidence for that, of course. We do not know for
certain, nor can we. People arguing against this claim to know for
certain that having non-free is a larger stick than not having it; an
assumption which I seriously doubt; but again, neither of us has done a
study on the topic :-)
> > More importantly, we will finally show that it is possible to build a
> > world-class operating system from only Free components.
>
> Why do you think that Debian main doesn't already demonstrate that?
Many people seem to find Debian main unusable without Debian non-free,
and to assume that non-free is also part of the distribution, or to fail
to fix the deficiencies in main because non-free is "good enough".
> > These restrictions are not good for users.
>
> And personally, I'd rather let our users and developers decide what's
> good for them on an individual basis. If they don't think non-free's
> good on balance, it's simple to choose not to work on it.
There is no removal of choice here; they are still free to put whatever
they like in sources.list.
Of course, you would have us also decide that providing non-free is
better for our users. Either way, we are making some decision about
what is better for them.
> > I submit that the best possible long-term outcome for our users is one
> > in which non-free software ceases to play any part in their lives.
>
> I can't imagine why you'd think anyone in Debian would disagree with that
> statement, or would need it "submitted" to them.
I have learned that I no longer can take that for granted.
> > What's more, it shows that there will always be some piece of non-free
> > software that someone finds vital. We will never find a point where
> > this is not the case.
>
> Then we need to work out a better way of achieving our best possible
> long-term outcome.
I, and I hope many others, would be quite pleased to discuss ideas with
you here or elsewhere.
> > We have to bite the bullet sometime, and now is a great time to do that.
>
> We don't actually have to "bite the bullet" on this ever.
That's fine, but it seems that there have not been serious proposals
that would achieve it any other way. If that can happen, that's good
too.
> > I have also said that I believe all operating systems suck. I still do.
> > Debian sucks also, though I like to say it sucks less. I want Debian to
> > be the first operating system that I can truly say "does not suck."
>
> Then drop non-free from your sources.list, if you think that's all it takes.
No, that is not all it takes. I am saying that we can make it happen
with some work.
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