On Tue, 06 May 2025 at 22:10:28 -0000, Marco d'Itri wrote:
smcv@debian.org wrote:Debian is unusual in the way we interpret our mission statement as extending to everything we distribute being Free, not just our executable code. Many other FOSS distributions apply the DFSG, the OSD, the FSF's guidelines or similar principles to executable code (only), and do not see a problem with having non-executable data that Debian would consider to be non-Free.I have been a Debian developer for almost 30 years, and I remember that when I joined the project we had no plans to apply the DFSG to e.g. documentation. Then the "editorial changes" (not) GR happened, and some people were very surprised by the practical outcome.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply that I think our interpretation is necessarily the one that brings most benefit to our users and Free Software, only that it's the one that the project enforces.
I personally think there's a risk that we put too much emphasis on following the chain of "true" source code to justifiable but impractical conclusions, at the expense of our ability to spend developers' finite time and motivation on making our distribution better; but I can't claim to have assessed whether this is a position that has consensus.
I also think we spend too much time thinking about "*the* preferred form for modification" when it's sometimes more appropriate to be looking for "*a* preferred form for modification" or even just "a form that would be reasonable to modify as a way to exercise your Free Software rights". Questions that have a clear answer for typical C/C++ source code do not always have an equally clear answer for other digital works.
Hopefully there is room for some sort of nuance and cost/benefit analysis beyond "if you and your upstream do not both meet the demands of the most DFSG-maximalist developer, then your work will be thrown away", which is unlikely to be good for anyone's state of mind (certainly it isn't good for mine).
smcv