Re: Draft vote on constitutional issues
On Wed, 2009-05-13 at 10:53 +0200, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote:
>
> DFSG is a guideline and a target: we must no go far as the nearest point
> we reached, but it still a guideline.
> Consider:
> - we never had a full DFSG Debian (also when DFSG was written)
> - we have "RC" also on stable releases. What should we do in such cases?
> Block all dDbian website, all mirrors, etc. because it is clearly against
> our foundations? No.
The Social Contract does not leave vague how we use the DFSG. It could
say that we take the DFSG as a guideline, or as a target, but it does
not. It does not say that we try to abide by it, or that we weigh it
against other things; it says that we *do* abide by it, 100%. I wonder,
how could it be written even more strongly? I have the feeling that if
it said "we will never intentionally include non-free software in
Debian, no matter what the circumstances" you would still start telling
us that this is a mere statement of goals and intentions, but not
anything actually binding.
Of *course* there will be bugs. We cannot promise not to make mistakes.
The argument is *not* about whether non-free things get in
unintentionally. We can't make a promise never to make a mistake. But
we can promise not to intentionally include non-free software, and it is
this promise which we have now broken twice.
Note that the Social Contract does *not* say that we treat non-free
things as bugs just like other bugs. We make no promise about other
bugs, except the general one to prioritize the interests of the free
software community and our users, both of which involve fixing bugs.
But section one doesn't just say it's a goal, or a priority, but says
that it is actually a *promise* not just to try hard, but *never* to
release non-free software as part of Debian.
> Where to put the line? This is the main problem: we have different interpretations
> and our foundation documents (and related discussions) doesn't provide us
> a true (and clear) interpretation.
I think there is nothing unclear about it. We have a perfectly clear
firm promise, and we have some people who do not want a firm clear
promise, and are willing to pretend that the social contract doesn't say
"100% free software".
Thomas
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