Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be> writes: > On Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 10:39:57AM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote: >> As far as I can tell, both Steve's and Gunnar's proposal would make >> Debian less of a free software operating system than it is today. That >> makes me sad. My preference for an outcome would be along the following >> lines. >> >> ================== >> >> We continue to stand by the spirit of the Debian Social Contract §1 >> which says: >> >> Debian will remain 100% free >> >> We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is >> "free" in the document entitled "The Debian Free Software >> Guidelines". We promise that the Debian system and all its components >> will be free according to these guidelines. We will support people >> who create or use both free and non-free works on Debian. We will >> never make the system require the use of a non-free component. >> >> Therefor we will not include any non-free software in Debian, nor in the >> main archive or installer/live/cloud or other official images, and will >> not enable anything from non-free or contrib by default. > > I can interprete that as having non-free available and installed by default > is acceptable, as long as there is a way not to use the non-free part. Sounds right, if I understand what you mean correctly. >> We also continue to stand by the spirit of the Debian Social Contract §5 >> which says: >> >> 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" and "non-free" 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 >> CD manufacturers to read the licenses of the packages in these areas >> and determine if they can distribute the packages on their CDs. 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). >> >> Thereby re-inforcing the interpretation that any installer or image with >> non-free software on it is not part of the Debian system, but that we >> support their use and welcome others to distribute such work. > > As you indicate yourself, this is an interpretation of the SC. I would > really prefer that such a question was not open to interpretation and > that the SC was changed to make it more clear what we mean. Agreed. I believe both Steve's and Gunnar's proposals both assume a particular interpretation of the DSC (and one that I disagree with), but it is not explicit in the proposal. > I don't actually understand what this part of your text is saying. Are > you saying that an image with non-free software on it is non-official > because it's not part of the Debian system? That is not something I read > in that text. I don't think the word "official" is defined or used in any foundational document, nor that its meaning is well agreed on or actually helps the discussion. It seems easier to talk about what is considered part of the Debian system or not: the foundation documents imply (to me) that anything not following DFSG is not part of Debian. Therefor, an installer that includes non-free content would not be part of Debian. That does not prevent the project from distributing it, we do that today and we distribute non-free/contrib today too without trouble. For me it helps to think that what the Debian project ships is a superset of what is considered to be the Debian system. > I would also like to point out that the Secretary has the power to > adjudicates any disputes about interpretation of the constitution, but > not about the foundation documents. How are disagreements over foundation documents handled in Debian? /Simon
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