Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
> > Why do you find that solution so unacceptable that you think Debian *must*
> > do something else?
On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 09:17:17PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> As time passes, it appears to me more and more that the continued
> presence of non-free is incompatible with the long-term interests of our
> stated goals, users and free software.
Please be more specific.
> Providing a distribution platform for non-free software seems to greatly
> moderate the incentive the non-free authors would have to relicense
> their software under the GPL; it seems that the areas that we have been
> successful already are testament to what we have the potential to do
> were we to carry an even larger carrot and stick.
Please provide examples.
> We are now long past the era where technical hurdles prevented spinning
> non-free off of Debian. We have a set of people that are capable of
> maintaining it by itself. We also have a situation where non-free as
> part of Debian is languishing, to the point where arguments that quality
> would suffer if it is removed from Debian are, at the very least,
> questionable.
If this is the case, we don't need to take any special action.
> To me, it's about living up to our own goals, and being the great force
> in favor of Free Software that we can be.
You do realize, don't you, that our current explicitly stated goals
conflict with the goals you've claimed for us? [In particular, your
idea that users need to be protected from non-free software is at odds
with the social contract.]
Maybe you should provide a proposal which states the goals you'd want
us to be following.
--
Raul
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