On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 09:59:29AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> Andrew's "drop non-free" proposal:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2003/debian-vote-200312/msg00044.html
> Finally, note that software currently in main which does not satisfy
> all of our guidelines will get dropped -- there will be no "fallback
> position". In particular, I'm thinking of GFDL licensed documentation,
> but I can't guarantee that that's all.
I don't see why you would think that. The proposal you cite is very
simple: it says we'll drop the non-free component, and that's all it says.
> My proposal [has not yet been introduced]:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg01551.html
> I've tried to capture our current practice in this proposal -- few changes
> should be necessary.
That's a bit misleading. Your proposal will limit non-free to only
pieces of software that pass some of the DFSG, rather than anything
we're legally allowed to distribute as part of non-free.
> I've tried to capture as many good ideas as I could
> recognize in this proposal, which hopefully will make it less likely
> that we will need to update the social contract again for quite some time.
Personally, I think that's harmful: independent issues should be voted
on separately; and afaics the editorial changes and the substantive
changes are independent.
At the moment the substantive options that have been discussed are:
[ ] Drop non-free
[ ] Limit non-free to partially-DFSG-free software
< > Keep non-free as is (unproposed)
while there are a whole raft of possible editorial changes.
At the moment, it's very easy to lose the substantive changes
you're proposing amidst the copious editorial changes you're also
proposing. That's bad -- we don't want to make substantive changes
by accident.
> It's not clear whether this proposal will be on this ballot or on some
> other ballot.
Personally, I think Debian would be best served by two ballots: one
to decide on the substantive issues in the simplest possible form;
and the other to decide on the issue of how the social contract might
be edited or rewritten to best codify our goals. I don't think it's at
all sensible to be trying to rewrite the social contract while there's
a significant question about what our goals actually are though.
> The social contract's ambiguity about handling of non-free software is
> what led to Andrew's "drop non-free" proposal.
Eh, I think it's safe to say that Andrew's opinion on what's best for
Debian and our users is what led to the "drop non-free" proposal.
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 could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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