On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 10:26:56PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > Sure, tell people it's not official, or not supported, or not > recommended, or whatever, but don't choose meanings for your terms > where you have to engage in horrendous circumlocutions just to talk > about stuff. Unofficial or unsupported seems to me to be a more defensible description of what we have now. If the point of this suggestion is to codify the current situation (and I assume it is), I think either of these terms might got a long way toward doing so. > > If you look at both of your examples, you will realize that this > > *is* an assumption you are making. Why don't you assume for a > > moment (as I have since for the last half decade) that Debian > > distributing software from the FTP site does not imply inclusion > > in the Debian system or being part of Debian. > > The "Debian system" is fine; but "Debian" refers to the project as a > whole about as often as it refers to the contents of "main". > > How about: > > 1. The Debian Distribution Will Remain 100% Free Software > > We promise to keep the Debian Distribution entirely free > software. As there are many definitions of free software, we > include the guidelines we use to determine if software is > "free" below. We will support our users who develop and run > non-free software on Debian, but we will never make the Debian > Distribution depend on an item of non-free software. > > and > > 5. Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards > > We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of > programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software > Guidelines. We have created "contrib" and "non-free" areas in > our archive for this software. The software in these > directories is not part of the Debian Distribution, although it > has been configured for use with Debian. Thus, although > non-free software isn't a part of the Debian Distribution, we > support its use, and we provide infrastructure (such as our > bug-tracking system and mailing lists) for non-free software > packages. > > ? This is much more clear than Raul's suggested change IMHO. I appreciate this. > > You're changing a sentence about what Debian is made of to one > > that's about what Debian distributes. > > And that's the question. Is it our distribution that's meant to be > 100% free, or is it our project? I think that yours is one creative way of trying to clarify the current situation without making most people feel like the strength of their project's stated commitment to the creation of a free software distribution is being smashed. I think there is room for improvement. In terms of answering your question though: I think that's pretty much what we're voting on. Regards, Mako -- Benjamin Mako Hill mako@debian.org http://mako.yukidoke.org/
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