Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:50:12 -0600, John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> said:
> On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 08:44:19AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava 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.
>>
>> I beg to differ. Indeed, the very reason for having non-free is
>> because the software performs a function that is useful to users,
>> despite no meeting our guidelines.
> Ah, but that is a short-term interest. I specifically singled out
> long-term interests in my statement.
Only if you are only looking at the trees, not the forest.
Individual trees (like netscape) fall and wither away. Other trees
appear in the forest. Until the environment changes such that
propreitary programs are not needed by the common user, I suspect
that providing an enclosure for the non-free trees.
>> And it helps free software two fold: it a helps in transitioning
>> packages to free-er licenses (ncftp, qt, etc), and it gets us a
>> wider audience (people who would have not chosen Debian without the
>> support for the non-free stuff). Once in the fold, they are exposed
>> to the ideas of free software, they espouse, and proselytize,
>> Debian.
> I still have yet to see anyone demonstrate that this is all
> impossible, or even significantly more difficult, by putting on-free
> on a different FTP server.
If there is such infrastructure, sure. I do not buy the
"support shall magically spring up" theory, and am not willing to
leave the people who use the non-free software from debian's servers
out in the lurch.
And you are dismissing the use of the BTS, the mailing lists,
and the rest of the Debian infrastructure -- we provide far more to
the community than a bunch of glorified packagers.
>> Everyone knows that Debian can't package all software there is out
>> there, so absence of the software reflects on the incompleteness of
>> Debian to the casual end user; having the software labelled as
>> non-free reflects on the software package.
> This, of course, assumes that the casual end user has non-free in
> sources.list; regularly checks what section of the archive things
> come from on install time; and knows what non-free means. I think
> these are all shaky assumptions to make about the casual end-user,
> especially since apt-get does not say what section a package is in.
Aptitude lets me know in no uncertain terms where things come
from. And aptitude and its ilk should be billed as the preferred
package management interface, not lower level tools like apt-get
(which started out as a library test tool) or dpkg.
> Of the people arguing against removing non-free, I know that many of
> them are skilled enough to maintain a Debian archive. While I don't
> know of specific hosting arrangements,
Then this is mere speculation (or, it shall magically spring
up).
> I also know that many less knowledgable people than they are able to
> find ample hosting, and I suspect that this would not be a big
> difficulty given the level of support they suggest non-free enjoys.
I'm sorry, I do not yet buy this argument.
manoj
--
With listening comes wisdom, with speaking repentance.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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