Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 03:50:28PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> On 2004-03-05 15:25:04 +0000 Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> 
> wrote:
> 
> >I would be really interested in your response to the part of my post 
> >you
> >silently skipped [...]
> 
> I think you are just trolling and trying to make me restate past 
> messages when I have no new data. I will reply and watch whether you 
> respond honourably, or just flame.

Thanks. 

> >  Sure, but please tell me, if we are going to move non-free stuff to
> >  non-free.org, exactly how will that change anything over the current
> >  situation in regard with packages with problematic licences ?
> 
> It will change nothing about those packages, but having them in the 
> debian ftp archive has no positive effect on them either.

Yeah, but wasn't one of the argument of dropping non-free the fact that
that would put pressure on upstreams of non-free packages to change
their licence. 

If there is going to be absolutely no change either way, we may as well
go the less costly route of keeping the stuff in the debian archive.

> It will probably improve user understanding of what is part of the 
> Debian distribution and what is not. How much it will improve is 
> apparently unknown, but no-one seriously suggests it will worsen.

Well, ok, if that is the only real reason behind your support of this, i
understand your position, sorry for having be confused a bit.

In my opinion, the real interest of removing non-free, and the one which
would make me even consider voting for it, would not have been that, i
believe the fact that the packages are on debian servers or on third
party servers makes absolutely no difference in the long run, is the
fact that we will then take a more agressive stance to producer of
non-free (or almost-free) software, thus showing the stick after the
carrot which has not worked.

> As you know, I think the best likely package benefit comes for those 
> with unproblematic licences not hosted by Debian, but I see that you 
> are careful to exclude that from your question.

Err, i have difficulties parsing you here, could you clarify that for me ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther