On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 10:51:05PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 02:47:49AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote:
> > As Debian does not develop arbitrary non-debian related software (from a
> > hive-mind perspective, individual DDs might very well do, but we can't
> > tell them what to do anyway), this change would alter the technical
> > direction of the project a fair bit, IMHO.
>
> In principle, we [as a project] do not develop software at all.
> Projects like dpkg, alien, apt, and so on are all carried out by
> individual developers, on the initiative of individual developers.
> But maybe that contradicts that principle.
Well, projects like Gnome and KDE get packaged on the initiative
of individual developers too. katie and debbugs get written on the
initiative of individual developers too. I don't think it's reasonable
to say "Debian" isn't about doing either of those things, though.
> Probably I should have used wording which does not seem to require that
> debian actually develop anything.
It's not really reasonable to "require" anything; that's the principle
implied by us all being volunteers.
IMHO, the social contract's about what we won't do, and what we aspire
to doing. We're aiming to create a free operating system. We won't hide
problems. We won't discriminate against people, even people who want to
use our resources to help them run non-free software. Etc.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we can.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature