Re: Overriding vs Amending vs Position statement
On Sat, May 02 2009, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Clint Adams <schizo@debian.org> writes:
>> On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:10:07AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
>>> The Debian project believes that shipping NVidia drivers in main is
>>> consistent with the current DFSG and Social Contract.
>
>>> If you think there's any serious danger of that passing with a
>>> majority, I would contend that you're essentially arguing there's
>>> such a serious disagreement in Debian over this issue that we do not
>>> even share the same language, terms, and basis for discussion. I
>>> don't see that pessimism supported by any of the previous votes or by
>>> the general discussion here.
>
>> Would your statement still apply if you replace "NVidia drivers" with
>> "non-free kernel firmware"?
>
> Well, part of the dispute is over the definition of non-free.
I thought the whole poing of including the DFSG in the SC was
that there would be no ambiguity about what the Debian project means
when it says something is non-free. Let me see how it is phrased:
We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is
"free" in the document entitled "The Debian Free Software
Guidelines".
> If one defines non-free as non-compliant with the DFSG, then such a
> statement would be internally contradictory. However, semantics
> aside, for the definition of non-free I'm pretty sure you're using (no
> source available), I think that's basically the GR we passed for the
> release of lenny. So no. :)
No. I think it means that the firmware blobs do not meet the
requirements of the DFSG; and that a work must be legally licensed in
order to be even considered free.
So, if a work is distributed under the GPL, Debian must be able
meet the constraints of the GPL in order to further distribute it. That
means, we must be able to distribute the preferred form of
modification, as the GPL states we must.
There is also the likelyhood that a number of these firmware
blobs are actually programs; in which case we need the source code --
but it is hard to tell which blob is or is not a bunch of instructions
to a processing unit.
>
>> Since I view those as equivalent, and the latter seems far more
>> dangerous, I do think the pessimism is warranted.
>
> However, for two releases in a row, the project has wanted to release
> with non-source kernel firmware.
Thus the cause for the pessimism. I think we are drifting from
the social contract, really.
manoj
--
Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth
while. Ambrose Bierce
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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