Amendment of "removal of non-free" proposal 20040121-13

[Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

This is a call for seconds on the proposal I submitted on the 19th:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg01453.html

Many people have contributed to the wording of this proposal.  I believe
this proposal is an improvement over the current Social Contract, and
I also believe it's better than the currently available alternatives.

I don't participate much in other forums (such as IRC) -- if you think
this proposal is worth seconding, and it hasn't gotten enough sponsors
yet, please bring it to the attention of other people who you think might
want to sponsor it.  The proposal needs five sponsors to be introduced.
A couple extra won't hurt, and might be a good precaution against errors.

The rationale for this proposal is:  clean up the social contract, make
it less ambiguous, and bring its words in line with the way we have
been interpreting it.  This includes continuing our existing support
for non-free software.

The social contract was originally written to address scepticism that
Debian would eventually turn into a commercial operation, and questions
about what exactly we were doing.  I think it's done a pretty good job,
but there have been a few lingering questions based on ambiguous turns of
phrase in the text.  Although it's impossible to eliminate all ambiguity
from a document of this nature, it is possible to address specific
concerns by looking at how we as a group have been interpreting the
contract, which is what I've tried to do here.

This proposal is formally an amendment of Andrew Suffield's proposal
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2003/debian-vote-200312/msg00044.html
striking all text but "I propose the following resolution" and replacing
that text as follows:

- -- 

I propose the following resolution:

We will replace our social contract with two documents, as specified
by the recent constitutional amendment.  The first replacement document
will be the social contract below, and the second replacement document
will be the Debian Free Software Guidelines extracted from the remainder
of the original social contract.

Here's the replacement for the social contract:


Debian's Social Contract

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common
cause to create a free operating system.  This is the "social contract"
we offer to the free software community.
 
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
"Social Contract" with the Free Software Community
 
  1. Debian will remain 100% free software

     Debian exists to distribute a general purpose system composed of
     entirely free software. As there are many definitions of free
     software, we use the "Debian Free Software Guidelines" to determine
     if software is free. We will also support our users who develop
     and run other software on Debian -- free or non-free -- but we will
     never make the system depend on non-free software.

  2. We will give back to the free software community

     When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license
     them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
     We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be
     widely distributed and used. We will communicate things such
     as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the "upstream"
     authors of works included in our system.

  3. We will not hide problems

     We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view
     at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become
     visible to others.

  4. Our priorities are our users and free software

     We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software
     community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We
     will support the needs of our users for operation in many different
     kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free
     works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to
     charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow
     others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and
     other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals,
     we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with
     no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system.

  5. Software that doesn't meet our free-software standards

     We acknowledge that some, but not all, of our users require
     the use of software which does not conform to the Debian Free
     Software Guidelines.  In order to accommodate these users, we have
     created "contrib" and "non-free" areas in our internet archive.
     The software in "non-free" satisfies some, but not all, of our
     guidelines and we do not guarantee all software in the non-free
     area may be distributed in other ways.  For those who need to run
     software we do not distribute, free or non-free, we support worthy
     application binary interface standards and namespace management
     standards.  Additionally, we will work to find, package and support
     free alternatives to non-free software so people who use only free
     software can work with users of non-free software.

- -- 
Raul

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3ia
Charset: noconv

iQEVAwUBQA57i/K/+Baey4gJAQEFQAgAuUF5hBh3kF61M/d8UFgrtYJtVns+A6Ic
WudOTTTjyIqmkdYKdx2W5JarUFCCuUYQhOeQtSJyAnQy+OmyFMb2L4V47wBHaJBX
ZIG4UHWy8tjbVxEx0smLc1PEIxs/dz4D7mEViWzipw/Kssu6F2zUlNEfrroWKAy2
klEHy8Fa00hbOek27v0+TQ+01ZXff+Ib/W4K6j54j6UzMIjWtKFR1We0aHOWCZZt
WY/cLuYFZTrbCx7cyfP6fDQklBLs1oxI63lmWwyuJtuk/M3JyHXyv6hk6ZDJj8yA
Gu7UWr6ycOhB1usPFdKrX8LX2BaF5sD8Lh2dtLLDWbg8I4UUJc+pIQ==
=OAOR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----