On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 03:00:50PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
> I am not a DD (yet), and this is not a GR proposal (yet). However, I'm 
> requesting comments on it, and maybe it'll be more tenable to people 
> more reluctant to remove non-free.

Thanks for posting this.  I think it's probably the best statement
of what this non-free proposal might be about that I've seen
to date.

> PROPOSAL 1
> -------- -
> 
> Whereas,
>       the Debian Project exists to create a distribution of free software;
> 
>       many Developers do not consider it moral or equitable to provide,
>       freely, our project's resources to projects who are unwilling or
>       unable to provide their code freely to the public;

Two issues here: morality, and equitablity.

[*] Morality: can you provide any reference to this moral code?

[*] Equitability: what is the unfairness, specifically

>       the importance of non-free software has greatly decreased since the
>       founding of the project; and

How do you measure this?

>       outside groups have been quite able to provide well-integrated
>       software no harder to obtain than that from Debian's own mirror
>       network:

I don't know what you're talking about here -- perhaps you should
ennumerate these groups.

The examples I'm aware of fall into two categories:

[*] temporary, development efforts

[*] commercial outfits which limit access to the result.

If it's the latter you're referring to... I think it's hypocritical
to compare what we have in non-free to commercial software.  While the
software in non-free doesn't meet our guidelines -- and we can't fully
support it --  we still can package it and distribute it fairly broadly.

This is not the case, in general, for commercial software.

-- 
Raul


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to