Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Raul Miller]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:15:01AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Dear technical ctte, if you are able to come to a conclusion on this
> topic, please make a decision as to whether the social contract requires
> non-free documentation, firmware, etc to be removed from main before
> release.

Do you have a list of the problems with current packages, and the
affected packages?

I sat down to start grinding through them, and realized that I
don't really know all the problems.

Thanks,

-- 
Raul

Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 11:23:51 -0400, Theodore Ts'o <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 

> You forgot one other thing.  We'll also have to strip **ALL**
> **FONTS** from Debian, since fonts come in binary form, and we don't
> have anything approaching the "preferred form for modification" for
> fonts.  In particular, the Truetype Bitstream Vera fonts which were
> so generously donated by Vera was generated not only using
> propietary source files, but also using propietary non-free
> programs.

Are you sure about that? The 100dpi, 75dpi (and other
 bitmapped fonts) do seem to come with the sources (indeed, I am given
 to undertand that when the uTF-8 extentions were added by Markus
 Kuhn, only free software was used).

manoj
-- 
Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to
twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
Manoj Srivastava   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
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Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:36:02 -0400, Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 

> On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:15:01AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
>> Dear technical ctte, if you are able to come to a conclusion on
>> this topic, please make a decision as to whether the social
>> contract requires non-free documentation, firmware, etc to be
>> removed from main before release.

> So...

> What are the technical criteria of relevance on this issue?

> At first blush there are several conflicts:

> * between various interpretations of the old social contract

> * between old social contract vs. new social contract

> * between 100% free software vs. timely release

> * between release discipline vs. the latest and greatest.

> Also -- in part because our current BTS doesn't indicate which
> versions bugs are fixed and released in -- there's something of a
> conflict between the stablity of "the most recent version" where
> bugs are "fixed" and "the stable version" where only herculean
> efforts make bug fixes available.

> As usual, none of the options* we're faced with are particularly
> appealing, but this ambiguity about what problem we're actually
> trying to resolve is also troubling.

> [*Obvious options: (1) delay release significantly or (2) approve
> something contrary to the current social contract and contrary to
> some interpretations of the previous social contract.]

Well, at this point, I do not see any non obvious options.  As
 things stand, I do think all non-free bits need to be removed;
 leading to (1); or a new GR is proposed (I do not think we can just
 overturn the SC requirements by fiat, but I am willing to be
 convinced otherwise).

manoj
-- 
Fun Facts, #63: The name California was given to the state by Spanish
conquistadores. It was the name of an imaginary island, a paradise on
earth, in the Spanish romance, "Les Serges de Esplandian", written by
Montalvo in
Manoj Srivastava   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
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Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Raul Miller]

[Note: I've removed aj from the explicit followups to honor the
Mail-Followup-To: headers on his message.]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:52:27AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> The key questions to my mind are:
> 
>   * are there any other possible release policies on this issue
> (than "delay sarge 'til non-DFSG-free firmware, docs, etc
> are removed from main") that satisfy the new social contract,
> by any reasonable interpretation of that document?
> 
>   * is it permissable to have a release policy that deliberately
> breaks the social contract?
> 
> I believe the answer to both questions is "no". I think the first question
> is fairly clearly an issue of technical policy -- what goes in sarge? --
> if that's worth anything.

Some of the technical issues underlying this issue are spelled out in
this thread:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/debian-devel-200404/msg01623.html

Of course: if a full solution to this problem lies outside the scope of
the committee, maybe we'd be better off issuing advice on how to proceed
than mandating a solution.

Also, if a full solution to this problem is out of scope then we shouldn't
be surprised if other work towards that solution proceeds apace.
Even working quickly, we shouldn't be surprised if we wind up simply
emphasizing that some other thread of activity is the right move.

-- 
Raul

Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Raul Miller]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 05:27:14PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> I'm just following up to note that [EMAIL PROTECTED] does not
> forward to the technical committee (and apparently you won't get a
> bounce ...).

Hmm... this feature might be a contributing factor on some of the
complaints that the committee is not very responsive.

-- 
Raul

Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Raul Miller]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:15:01AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Dear technical ctte, if you are able to come to a conclusion on this
> topic, please make a decision as to whether the social contract requires
> non-free documentation, firmware, etc to be removed from main before
> release.

So... 

What are the technical criteria of relevance on this issue?

At first blush there are several conflicts: 

* between various interpretations of the old social contract

* between old social contract vs. new social contract

* between 100% free software vs. timely release

* between release discipline vs. the latest and greatest.

Also -- in part because our current BTS doesn't indicate which versions
bugs are fixed and released in -- there's something of a conflict between
the stablity of "the most recent version" where bugs are "fixed" and "the
stable version" where only herculean efforts make bug fixes available.

As usual, none of the options* we're faced with are particularly
appealing, but this ambiguity about what problem we're actually trying
to resolve is also troubling.

[*Obvious options: (1) delay release significantly or (2) approve
something contrary to the current social contract and contrary to some
interpretations of the previous social contract.]

-- 
Raul

Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 02:56:09PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2004 at 07:28:11PM -0500, Debian Project Secretary wrote:
> >At this point, with 244 ballots resulting in 216 votes from
> >  214 developers, "Choice 1: Change the Social Contract [3:1 majority
> >  needed]" has carried the day., with a 4.462:1 majority, well over the
> >  3:1 needed.
> 
> The Social Contract now states:
> 
> ] 1. 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.
> 
> As this is no longer limited to "software", and as this decision was
> made by developers after and during discussion of how we should consider
> non-software content such as documentation and firmware, I don't believe
> I can justify the policy decisions to exempt documentation, firmware,
> or content any longer, as the Social Contract has been amended to cover
> all these areas.
> 
> As such, I can see no way to release sarge without having all these
> things removed from the Debian system -- ie main.

I'm just following up to note that [EMAIL PROTECTED] does not
forward to the technical committee (and apparently you won't get a
bounce ...). [EMAIL PROTECTED] is the correct address, so
replies intended for them should go there.

-- 
Colin Watson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]