Re: Possible draft non-free firmware option with SC change
Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> writes:
> Thanks for that proposal Russ!
> While we're at updating the Social Contract's article 5, what about a
> more invasive cleanup, to reflect reality ?
[...]
> What about this (which adds the non-free-firmware area, replaces "CD
> manufacturers" with "installation media providers", replaces "on their
> CD" with "on their installation media":
>> The Debian Social Contract is replaced with a new version that is
>> identical to the current version in all respects except that the point 5
>> reads as follows:
>>
>> 5. Works that do not meet our free software standards
>> We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that do
>> not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created
>> "contrib", "non-free" and "non-free-firmware" areas in our archive for
>> these works. The packages in these areas are not part of the Debian
>> system, although they have been configured for use with Debian. We
>> encourage installation media providers to read the licenses of the
>> packages in these areas and determine if they can distribute the
>> packages on their installation medias. Thus, although non-free works are
>> not a part of Debian, we support their use and provide infrastructure
>> for non-free packages (such as our bug tracking system and mailing
>> lists). The Debian official media may include firmware that is otherwise
>> not part of the Debian system to enable use of Debian with hardware tha
>> requires such firmware.
With Steve's change and a few other tweaks to try to make this a bit more
concise:
5. Works that do not meet our free software standards
We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that
do not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have
created areas in our archive for these works. The packages in these
areas are not part of the Debian system, although they have been
configured for use with Debian. We encourage distributors of Debian
to read the licenses of the packages in these areas and determine if
they can distribute the packages on their media. Thus, although
non-free works are not a part of Debian, we support their use and
provide infrastructure for non-free packages (such as our bug
tracking system and mailing lists). The Debian official media may
include firmware that is otherwise not part of the Debian system to
enable use of Debian with hardware tha requires such firmware.
I do think this sounds more up-to-date, and getting rid of "CDs" does feel
like an overdue edit. This would also resolve how to phrase the ballot
option (although someone's going to ask for a diff). What does everyone
else think about this?
Going *way* out on a limb (and to be honest I'm leaning hard against
proposing this because I think this level of change would require more
than a week's worth of discussion), I think something like this that
reorders and trims the section down would be even better:
5. Works that do not meet our free software standards
We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that
do not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have
created areas in our archive for these works. These packages have
been configured for use with Debian and we provide some
infrastructure for them (such as our bug tracking system and mailing
lists), but they are not part of the Debian system. We encourage
distributors of Debian to read the licenses of the packages in these
areas and determine if they can distribute these packages on their
media. The Debian official media may include firmware from these
areas that is otherwise not part of the Debian system to enable use
of Debian with hardware that requires such firmware.
This drops the "we support their use" statement which I think is a bit
confusing; I believe the intention is that we, Debian Developers, support
the non-free packages in the sense that we upload them and answer bug
reports, but it could also be read as "we endorse their use," which we do
not and don't really want to be saying. I think talking about
infrastructure makes this clearer.
But as mentioned, I think this is probably too big of a change for this
point in the process. (I'll still throw it out there, though, in case
there's overwhelming sentiment the other way.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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