Re: Possible draft non-free firmware option with SC change
Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> writes:
> Wonderful -- it is good that I am able to finally express your view in a
> way that you actually agree with.
Yes, thank you very much for your thoughtful and productive engagement in
this thread! It's really satisfying to be able to talk about things that
provoke strong feelings and be able to have a productive conversation that
helps both people understand each other.
I realize that in places I stated some views quite strongly or bluntly,
and I really appreciate your willingness to read past that and understand
what I was trying to express rather than the sometimes-flawed tone in
which I expressed it.
> I agree purity leads to cults and problems. My view of this situation
> is that the Debian project is climbing up the stairs of the pragmatists'
> ivory tower to the point where it suffers from the ills of purism: by
> forbidding the free installer, the pragmatist becomes the mirror image
> of a purist that wants to forbid everything that doesn't comply with its
> own ideal.
> In my mind, the pragmatic approch is to publish both the free and
> non-free installer.
So, spoiler, while I'm going to vote E first (I have a policy of only
proposing ballot options I would vote first), my guess is that B is going
to win for precisely the reasons you describe. I will certainly vote B
above NOTA. (For full disclosure, my vote is likely E>B>C>A>NOTA>D.)
In other words, I think we have a fair bit of common ground. My concern
about having both installers is pragmatic; I don't think it's necessary
and I think it's confusing to users (not to mention additional work that
divides our efforts). But it's certainly not a violation of Debian's
principles. My general policy for votes is that I'll vote my own
principles and let everyone else vote theirs and rely on the voting system
to reach compromises, but the compromise in B (and for that matter C) are
both ones I'm happy with.
I don't think having only one installer carries the message that you're
seeing in it. I think it's just a more elegant and straightforward way of
providing the user with a choice about whether to use non-free software
and respecting that choice. But I completely understand how you arrived
at the conclusion that you did and I respect your reasoning. In some ways
it's probably more sound than mine.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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