Re: non-free and users?
On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 10:43:58PM +0100, Sergey V. Spiridonov wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
>
> >>I hope I answered this question in other thread, just to make it as
> >>clear as possible. I agree with the fact that stopping to distribute
> >>non-free will decrease the amount of good, which Debian can do. It was
> >>wrong and stupid to claim opposite from my side. This fact doesn't
> >>change the fact that by distributing non-free Debian act in the way
> >>which lead to unethical situations. Dropping non-free itself will
> >>decrease the amount of good, but it will decrease also the amount of
> >>actions which lead to unethical situations.
> >>
> >>The only solution I see, to get from the situation where the Debian is,
> >>will be that Debian not just drops non-free, but will redirect efforts
> >>and resources from distributing non-free to free packages support and
> >>distribution.
> >
> >
> >Well, the problem with that premise, is that it will redirect the effort
> >from working on free _and_ non-free software, to the work needed to
> >maintain the non-free.org architecture and/or maintaining the non-free
> >packages outside of debian.
>
> I said that by redirecting efforts and resources from non-free to free
> we will reduce amount of unethical situations. You say that redirecting
> efforts and resources from non-free to free (that is what I propose)
> will redirect them on something else.
Yeah, but you do realize, i hope, that the effort involved in doing
packaging is much much less than the effort involved in creating a free
alternative.
Let's take the unicorn package as an example. This package is a driver
for my ADSL modem, and consist of a GPLed kernel driver (well
GPLed+exception) and a binary only soft-ADSL library (the exception
being in linking with the binary-only library). While i could easily do
the packaging, and would do it anyway for my own usage, i absolutely
don't have the competence to implement a free alternative to the
soft-ADSL library, and since i am told that there are perhaps a handfull
of people worldwide which understand how ADSL really works, and that
they are all working for the big telecom companies, this could easily be
a project that would correspond to many man-years of work.
Also, realize that all the things we are doing is volunteer work, and
that we work on the things we are interested in working, the
'redirection of effort' you are talking about sounds suspiciously like
forcing volunteers to do what they don't like, and for free on top of
that, which is something really opposite to what the free/open comunity
is about, and which you would know if you had taken the effort to
contribute something.
> I do not understand you here. You probably mean that you will do
> something else because distributing non-free is very important for
> you. But I was talking about you. I mean you will redirect your
> efforts as well as other Debian developers.
Nope, the work i do for the non-free package, i will do anyway, since i
_need_ it to get ADSL access. Sure, if you would donate me a nice ADSL
ethernet modem/router that don't needs a driver, i might reconsider
that, but as you may well be aware, my capacity to help would be very
severly limited if i had no more internet access.
> >And notice that altough many non-free packages are quite ok (imagine a
> >licence of the kind "GPL but additional limitation that it can't be used
> >for mass murders or such"), there are others, and in particular the
> >binary-only ones, which are not only non-ethical, but also plain _evil_.
>
> I do not talk for a moment about the whole non-free. Currently I am
> talking about 2 clear cases: (1) packages with sources without permition
> to distribute modified versions and (2)packages without sources.
Yeah, and they represent a very very small part of non-free. There are
only 7 packages in non-free without sources, or without all the sources,
like the unicorn modem, but also the nvidia drivers. Most of them are
drivers, and it is already a chance to have those drivers. How many
companies do only distribute windows driver and don't provide specs ?
Tell me, how will you help your friend which inadvertently bought a
nvidia graphic card instead of a radeon one to get 3D ? How will you
help me with my ADSL modem ? do you volunteer to write the soft-ADSL
library, so one more package could be removed from non-free ?
As for those without right to modification, i don't remember the number,
but most of them are documentation, not code, and many of those are
already mistakenly in main (see the GDFL issues). And i suppose that
even if you cannot modify those, you can always write an errata like
document (analogous to source+patch maybe ?), or print it and make some
annotations or whatever.
> I think that software or any other thing can not be evil without
> associated human action.
And there are many non-free licenced which prohibit use by the army or
the US governement or whatever, use by group of people that have already
shown their readiness for doing evil actions.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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