Re: I hereby resign as secretary
On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 10:18:04AM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: That is when Ian pointed out to me how true that was in the Linux community. I wonder if Debian is exemplifying this behavior. A lot of good people have retired lately. It is starting to feel like that block of homes that has one too many For Sale signs. Why is everyone leaving? What is so bad about the area? What do they know that I don't? Well, I haven't left, but I do far less with Debian now than I used to. It is still my preferred OS for a variety of reasons. I probably shouldn't write this tired at 11:30PM, but here goes. I get no joy whatsoever out of the current mailing list discussions. It is sad to see people arguing so bitterly about pedantic matters in constitutions and guidlines and policy when that stuff is NOT why we're here. We're here to make a Free operating system, dammit. People that are not here to make a Free operating system shouldn't be here. Our community is being fractured by poisonous people. They are destroying our project, running off the people that like to code and contribute, leaving behind those coders that can tolerate things and the rest of the poisonous people. We as a project have failed, over and over and over again, to learn this simple lesson: A poisonous person is never worth it. Either we turn the person non-poisonous, or make that person go away. It doesn't matter of the person maintains $IMPORTANT_PACKAGE_OR_SERVICE; if they are destroying the community, their harm outweighs their good. We have gotten rid of a couple of high-profile poisonous people over the last couple of years, but we took far too long to do it. We need to realize that social skills matter, and that a project this size cannot function without politeness, respect, trust, and humility. (Shamelessly lifted from Ben Collins-Sussman). I am tired of hearing the free speech argument in the face of getting rid of poisonous people. Debian is not a vehicle for vitriol; they can perfectly well set up a blog for it. http://www.red-bean.com/fitz/presentations/2007-07-26-OSCON-poisonous-people.pdf should be required reading. Read that and see how many things you recognize from Debian. It's scary, and we're doing almost nothing about it, which is scarier. http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/2006/07/oscon_how_open_source_projects.html http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645 for the video (Those are by Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian Fitzpatrick, some of the svn guys) I have considered leaving the project several times this year. The fun of being a Debian developer went away long ago. I maintain packages for my own utility now, at home and at work, and that's it. The fun will be back if Debian starts being a large community of friends again, instead of a large community of pedantic trolls. Manoj, though in a job that requires a pedant, and someone I've had more than one argument with, is one of the people I'd consider a friendly face around Debian. Those of you that have maltreated him owe him and this project a huge apology, but I doubt you will be mature enough to provide one. Those of you that coddle poisonous people also owe the project a huge apology. Debate ideas and proposals vigorously, but don't attack the proposer. Debate ballots if you must, but leave out the name-calling. Heck, debate the actions of poisonous people and what to do about it, but even then, we need not use ad hominem attacks. We are too big to let this continue. We will fail if it does. I for one do not want to see this project fracture into FreeDebian, NetDebian, OpenDebian, Debian/OS, and Ubuntu. Or go the way of... Yggdrasil. One bright spot is that I think there are fewer poisonous people in positions of authority in Debian now than in many points in its history. We have a great leadership team, including ftpmasters, listmasters, release managers, secretary, SPI board, translators, system admins, DPLs, etc. and I am amazed at the amount of crap they put up with in order to do thankless tasks. Even though I don't agree with everything you do, I've got to say: great job. You guys do a job I would never want, day in and day out, and take lots of crap in the process. Thanks for making this project possible. Now if only we could say positive things about people BEFORE they resign, wouldn't this be a better place? -- John /soapbox -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Proposal to delay the decition of the DPL of the withdrawal of the Package Policy Committee delegation
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 09:40:43PM +0200, Martin Wuertele wrote: My reason for this proposal is the impression the revocation of the delegation is based on the disagreement of the interpretation of the policy between the chair of the Package Policy Committee and the Debian Project Leader. I don't get it. You want to override a decision not because the decision is bad on its face, but because of a *guess* as to the reason for it? That makes no sense. What difference does the reason make? If it's a good decision, then let it stand. If it's a bad decision, then let it not. Do you believe it's a bad decision, and if so, why? -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Recall the Project Leader
On Sun, Sep 24, 2006 at 10:54:34AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: I think everyone understands where I stand now, so I'll stop posting about this, but my agenda in this is to ask people not to be so worried about employment conflicts as to force strict barriers between Debian and the rest of life. I spend a fair bit of effort trying to break down those barriers in my own life. That direction would be the exact *opposite* direction from what I think is healthy and most productive for me, and my position on issues of this sort is far from unique at least among people who work for universities (those being the people to whom I've talked the most about this). I completely agree, Russ. And I work for a manufacturing company. How would Debian benefit if I can no longer take the Bacula packages that I'm building for my employer anyway, and upload them to Debian? I certainly am not willing to maintain them twice, and before we decided to use Bacula at work, the Bacula packages in Debian were in such a mess that they had been removed from testing for months. This is a small example of the benefit Debian derives from people working on Debian at their job. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Recall the Project Leader
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 07:43:22PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: But we, Debian developers, can make this confusion vanish, and I This is outlandish and insulting. That a Debian developer should be held responsible every time someone in the press writes something inaccurate is terribly wrong. I applaud AJ for showing initiative and being willing to try new things to improve Debian. I don't agree with everything he's done, but this is an *experiment* and he described it as such. Furthermore, Debian should not be attempting to control the lives of developers outside of Debian. This represents a terrible intrusion into privacy and, moreover, an unreasonable demand upon volunteers. What's worse, your complaint seems to be that AJ told someone what he was doing privately. Debian should not be seeking to restrict the speech of its developers or leadership. It is only by trying new ideas and having open and honest debate that Debian will improve. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Recall the Project Leader
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 08:10:05PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: Seconded. I am shocked at the support that this is seeing, and I wonder if people are letting their feelings about this particular project cloud their judgement about recalling a DPL? Remember what we are saying here -- that because some Australian publication got some facts wrong, that we need to recall the DPL. Why is there any support at all for this? Publications have been getting things wrong about Debian for years. We should correct them, not shoot the person they wrote about. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Recall the Project Leader
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 10:59:53PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote: Debian to decide. This vote is in my opinion the best way to answer this question. It does nothing of the kind. You're saying that you're not even going to give him the chance. You can't answer the question without making the attempt and observing the results. I would note that this does nothing to actually make him stop with his project. Besides, getting an answer to a question seems a pretty flimsy reason to recall a DPL. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Recall the Project Leader
On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 02:26:19AM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote: The debate has been launched on -private, but it's clear to everyone that we were very far from a consensus[2]. So, instead of *beeing consistent* with the *consensus* of the opinions, a so called external structure has been launched. Onboard, we see many very well known You know, this is far from the first time a situation like this has happened. Some others, none of which caused proposals like this to occur, included: * Ubuntu is funding Debian developers due to a disagreement about direction, emphasis, and release practices. A very real fork, yet with many common developers with Debian. * Progeny funded Debian developers working on alternative Debian installers, configuration tools, and a host of other items and was led at the time by none other than the founder of Debian (Ian Murdock). Many of Progeny's employees were and are Debian developers, with a former DPL (Branden) among them. * Bruce, a former DPL, being involved with a venture capital firm that funded Debian developers. * Debian itself donated $1000 to the Gnome project to fund its development due to a dispute with KDE over Qt licensing. I don't recall this coming with strings such as can't be spent on programmer time. So there is even precedent for the project doing this sort of thing. The letter *and* the spirit of the Constitution have been flouted. And here is my rationale to second the recall of Anthony Towns. You have yet to show that the Debian constitution does, or even should, apply to actions that occur outside of Debian. AJ is also a programmer -- do you claim that the Debian constitution and social contract prevents him from working for a proprietary software company on his own time? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote for the Debian Project Leader Election 2005
Well... So much for: 1) secret ballots 2) reading directions On Thu, Mar 24, 2005 at 08:44:29PM +0100, Emmanuel le Chevoir wrote: - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 46348448-74a5-40ae-a651-49704435ae8c [ 3 ] Choice 1: Jonathan Walther [ 6 ] Choice 2: Matthew Garrett [ 2 ] Choice 3: Branden Robinson [ 1 ] Choice 4: Anthony Towns [ 5 ] Choice 5: Angus Lees [ 4 ] Choice 6: Andreas Schuldei [ ] Choice 7: None Of The Above - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -- Emmanuel le Chevoir -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about Anthony Towns rebutting Branden Robinson
On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 03:25:17PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Anthony Towns's rebuttal to Branden Robinson looks partly false. It mentions Branden's demotion to deputy-treasurer under Jimmy Kaplowitz about SPI. It looks from http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-2004-01-06.jrk.1.br.1 and http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/minutes/20040907 that there was 8 months between Branden quitting as treasurer and being named as deputy. It even looks like SPI acting on the suggestion Speaking solely for myself here: your analysis is correct. Branden was not forced out, but resigned, and volunteered to help Jimmy later. You may also find these minutes of interest: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/minutes/20040106 Basically, what happened was: 1. Branden expressed a desire to resign in January 2004 2. A call for candidates for being elected to Treasurer was put forth 3. Jimmy was the only one to stand for election to Treasurer (some might find this interesting) 4. So, Jimmy was appointed without needing to run an election in February, 2004 5. Branden was selected as deputy treasurer in August, 2004 http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-announce/2004/96.html -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 09:07:37PM +1300, Nick Phillips wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. Good point; it would probably be a good idea to announce them on d-d-a. I would be happy to do that, if there is some wider consensus (on -project perhaps?) that this would be desired, as opposed to unwelcome noise. I have added this page to the site: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meetings It explains that meetings are usually held at 1900UTC on the first Tuesday of every month. Since they were predictable, in the past, I haven't thought it merited a post to d-d-a. But I'm happy to do that if people would find it helpful. What do you think? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 01:07:16PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Ultimately the question still stands, have operations been repaired? I doubt anyone would take a yes here now, quite rightly. We need to watch and decide for ourselves. Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. That's an important first step. But as I've mentioned before, one of our other problems is a chronic lack of manpower. We're slowly getting better there. The SPI board actually makes quorum for its meetings these days, for one visible sign :-) There are two people working on the treasurer tasks. It doesn't take much to help out. Just join a mailing list or attend a meeting and you'll see what things we need to work on. Volunteer, and chances are people would jump at the opportunity to have help. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. I do e-mail spi-general with the info about 2 weeks in advance. Here's the most recent notice: http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-general/2005-February/001224.html You're right about the website. We've had continuing trouble keeping it up to date. I'll talk to spi-www folk and see what I can do to fix that. It's about time I learn how to edit the SPI site, I suppose. In general, meetings are at 1900 UTC in irc.oftc.net #spi on the first Tuesday of the month. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 04:17:19PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:26:00AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. Notice that for non-US developers, i think that SPI is not all that interesting to get involved with actively, that is at least the impression i get from it. Probably the interest level is about the same for everyone. If you are bored with what SPI does, it probably doesn't matter where you live :-) We have three non-US people on the SPI board: David Graham (Canada), Ian Jackson (UK), Joey Schulze (Germany), if I remember correctly. We also have non-US people that occasionally help us translate web pages. As far as I know, we have no rules regarding the nationality of members or officers of SPI. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SPI opacity, was: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 04:35:25PM +, MJ Ray wrote: John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. I do e-mail spi-general with the info about 2 weeks in advance. Why would I look for announcements on the list for General discussions related to Software in the Public Interest rather than the one labelled Software in the Public Interest announcements? Originally, when I started sending them, I was just sending them to general since I wanted to keep the volume on -announce down for those that want a low-volume list. But your point makes sense. I'll send them to -announce from now on. [...] It's about time I learn how to edit the SPI site, I suppose. If you find out, please add it to the site. I have no idea where to I will. send a patch against what to. I see the cookiemonster CMSes are discussed on spi-general, which would bar some, but it would be nice to know what's currently used to see if it's editable. It's using wml (same thing as Debian uses?) in a CVS repository on chic.spi-inc.org. If you are willing to help with our website, GREAT! I don't know if that CVS repo is public, but the place to ask about that -- and about pitching in to help -- is the spi-www list. I'll do some checking as well. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SPI opacity, was: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 04:35:25PM +, MJ Ray wrote: John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] It's about time I learn how to edit the SPI site, I suppose. If you find out, please add it to the site. I have no idea where to OK, I've added a news item to the site. I've also added a Meetings page that explains when and where our meetings generally occur. Both of these changes have been committed, but the public site only gets rebuilt every 8 hours, so it could be a few hours until it appears. Please feel free to send other suggestions along. I'd suggest that spi-general may be a more suitable forum. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 09:41:05PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Wednesday 23 February 2005 9:05 pm, MJ Ray wrote: As a service to mailservers everywhere I'll put up a permanent page outlining my complaints: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=SPIAccounting [ snip ] Open to interpretation. The President *not* taking control of the financial office (at least temporarily) has certainly allowed problems to continue. Trying once again to make something productive out of this little discussion... I looked at your wiki page. The only items that look relevant going forth are I outlined next steps to correct procedures going forward and Checks are now once again being processed by volunteers in two assorted places with no secure storage and no professional accounting help. Regarding the first point, could you post a URL to these suggestions of yours? Regarding the second point, I agree with you that professional accounting help should be found. However, simply saying, see, we're paying someone to help! doesn't magically make things better. As you know, there has been some resistance to spending money on this. It doesn't really take a pro to write log transactions and send things off to a bank, either. Regarding secure storage: what is there to store? Checks are being sent off for deposit almost as soon as they come in, and bank statements, canceled checks, etc. are made available electronically. Having an Internet bank is, I think, a great benefit there -- and the geographical proximity to Branden probably helps, too. We probably have some non-treasurer things -- incorporation papers, etc -- that should be in a safe deposit box somewhere. I'm aware of that. It just hasn't been at the top of the list given all the other urgent needs we have around here. Or are you aware of things I don't know of? -- John Goerzen Author, Foundations of Python Network Programming http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590593715 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 11:39:16AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: You guys knew this was coming. When I shelved this flamewar months ago I made it clear that the problem would be revisited at a future date. That future date is here and I want to know how SPI has corrected its accounting problems. I want to know the filing procedures. I want to know why I can't RTFM: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/minutes/ http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/minutes/20041207.txt If you don't understand what's there, ask. You obviously have logs of #spi, soyou know what's been discussed. In a nutshell: 1. A regular treasurer's budget has been established 2. The treasurer has adopted a more informative reporting system 3. An assistant treasurer (Branden) has been selected 4. Banking is now done in a more convenient way for geographically disparate people Obviously the work is incomplete. But progress is being made, despite your efforts to ignore it. Jimmy or Branden can probably speak more to this. If you want to engage in a discussion about this, I submit that spi-general is a more appropriate forum than debian-vote. Of course, this is not the only business that SPI must attend to, and we've had other things to deal with also. get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when we It would have helped if: a) you had sent the invoice to the SPI treasurer b) you hadn't sent it in the middle of a box of papers that otherwise needed only to be stored c) you hadn't made contradictory remarks about whether or not you desired payment at all Branden is not an SPI officer. Jimmy is the SPI treasurer. Branden is a member of the board only. ask to get paid. These are reasonable questions. Debian should be curious about how its monies are managed. How any DPL candidate can ignore the fact that SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of donation checks this year is beyond me. I think it is a valid and reasonable topic for discussion in this DPL race. Actually, this year would be inaccurate. last year would even be inaccurate. This would have to be 2003 and before, right? Maybe a very small part of the beginning of 2004? -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 01:15:42PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: You want a line-by-line of each expenditure? You aren't going to get These actually are often posted by Jimmy or Branden to spi-private. They are not posted to spi-general due to privacy concerns. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean, It is true that SPI still is not performing like it should be. It is also true that SPI has never performed like it should in its entire history. SPI has been dysfunctional from its very beginning. It's also been short on manpower through its entire lifespan. For whatever reason, SPI has not been of much interest to many Debian folks for most of the time, except for the occasional flamewar. Some of us are trying to make SPI better. It is a difficult thing to do, given the magnitude of the problems in the past, the lack of volunteer manpower (our single biggest problem), general lack of interest, and disagreements about the best way to proceed. Since your term as president of SPI ended, I have seen nothing but trolling from you. SPI sucks, SPI sucks, you suck sort of thing. Yes, we all know there are problems -- big ones, even. Yelling about them doesn't fix them. It is unfair to lay all of SPI's ills at Branden's feet. If memory serves, the treasurer before him literally *disappeared* for long periods of time. The board at that point often failed to meet due to so many members failing to show up. Branden inherited a huge mess. Yes, he made mistakes, but I think you are misconstruing this incident and incorrectly magnifying it as part of some sort of vendetta. In this particular instance, if memory serves, you sent the invoice to Branden inside a large box of other papers -- even though Branden had already resigned as treasurer by that time. The rest of us were not aware of it until later, and you had given mixed signals previously about whether or not you would charge SPI for your helpful efforts. It is unfair to lay all this at Branden's feet for another reason. While preside, you tried to usurp the authority of the SPI treasurer, a move that put SPI itself in quesitonable legal waters. While you were ultimately stopped, by the rest of the board and the expiration of your term, your actions led directly to Yet Another SPI Treasurer Crisis, not to mention one of the nastiest flamewars in SPI history. While it is true that Brainfood provided valuable help processing part of the accounting backlog, it is also true that the manner in which you handled it caused huge problems that linger today. Finally, you argue that Branden said nasty things about you publically. What you didn't state was that there was not one single active person in #spi at the time, and, again if memory serves, probably fewer than 20 the entire time. So, while technically true that #spi is not a private channel, you made the comments far more public than he did. I suspect that nobody paid much notice to them, and that Branden expected as much. Let's talk about some of the good things happening at SPI, too. David Graham has made tremendous work catching up with old never-posted minutes and resolutions. Several people have helped with that effort by updating many pages on the website. Several new projects have joined SPI. Jimmy Branden recently produced the closest thing we've ever had to a true treasurer's report and successfully migrated to a more useful bank. The trademark committee has been actively working on projects in multiple countries. Wichert has migrated some of the SPI services to a new machine. I produced the first ever (as far as I can tell) annual report last year (a responsibility you neglected). In short, I think that SPI is finally *starting* to act like a real, competant organization, after almost 8 years. These are tentative baby steps, of course, and much remains to be done. I hope that 8 years from now, we can look back and see how far we've come, rather than continuing to point fingers. Maybe then, you, me, Branden, and everyone else can take some pride in the little contributions we have made to make SPI better, and SPI's past will no longer haunt its present and future. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Will Branden Robinson run for DPL again this year?
On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 03:16:45PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: You can read it at: http://people.debian.org/~branden/dpl/to_run_or_not_to_run_in_2005.html FWIW, the wiki page Branden mentions is at http://wiki.debian.net/?DraftBranden -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Force AMD64 into Sarge
On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 10:20:40PM +0100, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: I am pursuing it. I posted the three items which are currently stopping the amd64 port to be added to the archive, and I'm in active contact with ftpmaster to move the new architecture and common architecture proposals forward; I've also asked someone to find out what the technical questions are and to get them posted. I've also asked a member of the amd64 porting team today to clarify what their thoughts are about an inclusion in sarge. It's quite interesting to note that there is no agreement at all among the amd64 porters whether the port should (in their opinion) be included in sarge or not. That's true; I'm an amd64 porter that opposes inclusion in sarge at this time. However, that issue is orthogonal to inclusion in the archive in sid, which is something that we also can't seem to get done. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: -= PROPOSAL =- Release sarge with amd64
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 10:42:03AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 02:43:59PM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote: 1. that the next Debian GNU/Linux release, codenamed sarge, will include the amd64 architecture, based on the work currently hosted at http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/ ; I think this is the wrong way to approach this issue. I agree. If this GR were calling for amd64 to be introduced to sid, I'd support it, but I don't think it's right to release it with sarge. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 09:01:34AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: If people do not like the title selected by the proposer, they should speak up _before_ the fact; and suggest alternatiuves, and not rail against the secretary and, without proof, accuse him of substituting his opinion in the GR title. Well put. Besides, why is there all this complaining now? Are these people really saying that they decided whether or not an issue merited their vote simply by the title and not the content? I have no sympathy for people that did not get what they wanted for that reason. The CFVs were posted far and wide and included the full text. If you chose to ignore it, fine, but you have no reason to complain about the results. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 12:36:19PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 02:58:02PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: Personally, I find swearing much less offensive than making things so personal that you title threads with things like Serious problems with Mr Troup or Why Anthony Towns is wrong. But you don't seem interested in doing anything about that, so why should anyone else be interested in addressing your concerns? I think you have a point there. There's a difference between being abrasive, belligerent, obnoxious, and incoherent and being coherently and pointedly slanderous -- and the latter is far more noxious. True, but -- I don't think that either of those subject lines are really slanderous. For instance, the Why Anthony Towns is wrong should probably have read Why Anthony Towns' *Argument* is wrong -- which simply uses Anthony's name to identify which argument is being referred to. However, I don't see the difference as being all that significant. Back in my old FidoNet days, the Golden Rule of FidoNet went basically like this: Thou shalt not be excessively annoying, and thou shalt not be excessively easily annoyed. I think that applies perfectly to Debian. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 12:36:19PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 02:58:02PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: Personally, I find swearing much less offensive than making things so personal that you title threads with things like Serious problems with Mr Troup or Why Anthony Towns is wrong. But you don't seem interested in doing anything about that, so why should anyone else be interested in addressing your concerns? I think you have a point there. There's a difference between being abrasive, belligerent, obnoxious, and incoherent and being coherently and pointedly slanderous -- and the latter is far more noxious. True, but -- I don't think that either of those subject lines are really slanderous. For instance, the Why Anthony Towns is wrong should probably have read Why Anthony Towns' *Argument* is wrong -- which simply uses Anthony's name to identify which argument is being referred to. However, I don't see the difference as being all that significant. Back in my old FidoNet days, the Golden Rule of FidoNet went basically like this: Thou shalt not be excessively annoying, and thou shalt not be excessively easily annoyed. I think that applies perfectly to Debian. -- John
Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:17:44PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 07:34:11AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: meekness is found in both men and women, and meek men are discouraged from participating in debian (and other groups) just as much as women are. men suffer from meekness and have to go through all the stress and trauma of overcoming it, just as women do. We also have our fair share of people with an excess of the polar opposite of meekness. There has *got* to be a great joke out there, seeing the two of you discuss meekness. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:17:44PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 07:34:11AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: meekness is found in both men and women, and meek men are discouraged from participating in debian (and other groups) just as much as women are. men suffer from meekness and have to go through all the stress and trauma of overcoming it, just as women do. We also have our fair share of people with an excess of the polar opposite of meekness. There has *got* to be a great joke out there, seeing the two of you discuss meekness. :-)
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 09:05:01PM -0600, David Moreno Garza wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 2004 20:15:25 -0500 Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Perhaps we need to reconsider our official recognition of Freenode's #debian as a Project resource. Couldn't it be a good idea to form a Debian-specific IRC network? I'm just wondering it, not use FreeNode, but an specific network. What about OFTC, which already exists, is another SPI project, has a democratic process similar to Debian, and seems to generally be run by stable people with a clue? -- John
Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:37:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:49:39PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: And this brings up a good point. Andrew, why can you and Raul not be bothered to collect the current versions of your proposals, and post here a solicitation for seconds on them, especially in the face of AJ's? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
I second this as well. On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:37:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:49:39PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: -8- Paragraphs 1 to 4 of the social contract are replaced with the following text: 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. 2. We will give back to the free software community When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be widely distributed and used. We will communicate things such as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the upstream authors of works included in our system. 3. We will not hide problems We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible to others. 4. Our priorities are our users and free software We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system. If paragraph 5 is still present, it is replaced with the following text: 5. 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). -8- Seconded. -- G. Branden Robinson|I've made up my mind. Don't try to Debian GNU/Linux |confuse me with the facts. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Indiana Senator Earl Landgrebe http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED]GPG: 0x8A1D9A1Fwww.complete.org Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics,' respond those who don't want to learn. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: which proposals are current?
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 10:34:16AM +, Jochen Voss wrote: What is the current state of the non-free GR? Which proposals are still being considered? Which proposals still do need seconds? Raul and Andrew: can you please answer these questions and post current versions of your proposals in a form that they can be seconded? Also, if those proposals have already received seconds, please list them, with links to the appropriate messages. This discussion has been so long and confusing that I wonder if anyone but you really knows what the current state is. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
I second this as well: On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:37:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:49:39PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: -8- Paragraphs 1 to 4 of the social contract are replaced with the following text: 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. 2. We will give back to the free software community When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be widely distributed and used. We will communicate things such as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the upstream authors of works included in our system. 3. We will not hide problems We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible to others. 4. Our priorities are our users and free software We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system. If paragraph 5 is still present, it is replaced with the following text: 5. 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). -8- Seconded. -- G. Branden Robinson|I've made up my mind. Don't try to Debian GNU/Linux |confuse me with the facts. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Indiana Senator Earl Landgrebe http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED]GPG: 0x8A1D9A1Fwww.complete.org Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics,' respond those who don't want to learn. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:37:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:49:39PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: And this brings up a good point. Andrew, why can you and Raul not be bothered to collect the current versions of your proposals, and post here a solicitation for seconds on them, especially in the face of AJ's?
Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
I second this as well. On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:37:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:49:39PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: -8- Paragraphs 1 to 4 of the social contract are replaced with the following text: 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. 2. We will give back to the free software community When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be widely distributed and used. We will communicate things such as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the upstream authors of works included in our system. 3. We will not hide problems We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible to others. 4. Our priorities are our users and free software We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system. If paragraph 5 is still present, it is replaced with the following text: 5. 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). -8- Seconded. -- G. Branden Robinson|I've made up my mind. Don't try to Debian GNU/Linux |confuse me with the facts. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Indiana Senator Earl Landgrebe http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED]GPG: 0x8A1D9A1Fwww.complete.org Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics,' respond those who don't want to learn. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Disposition of original non-free proposal?
Manoj, I refer you to http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg01185.html, which summarizes some history. My present understanding is that the non-free removal GR I originally proposed back in 2000, which received sufficient seconds to proceed, was placed on hold by you after you assumed the secretary position (see links in the above message). If other related proposals are to be voted on imminently, would it make sense to vote on this one simultaneously? If so, what would be the procedure for making it be no longer on hold? To confuse matters slightly, in November 2002, I posted a revised GR proposal which also received seconds (again, I believe in sufficient number for a vote). Links to that discussion are also present in the message cited above. This new proposal is the one I would prefer to have voted on if any will be. Though in [1] you indicate that your intent is to revive the GR from 2000, I'm not sure if that still holds. Thanks, John Goerzen [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200211/msg00013.html
Re: which proposals are current?
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 10:34:16AM +, Jochen Voss wrote: What is the current state of the non-free GR? Which proposals are still being considered? Which proposals still do need seconds? Raul and Andrew: can you please answer these questions and post current versions of your proposals in a form that they can be seconded? Also, if those proposals have already received seconds, please list them, with links to the appropriate messages. This discussion has been so long and confusing that I wonder if anyone but you really knows what the current state is. -- John
Re: resounding nothingness
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:14:23AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: Maybe some clarification would be good, and once a final version is there, then make a call for a proposal. I'm a little unclear on what kind of clarification is needed. See Jochen's message. I echo his sentiments. Right now, I am *completely* confused. I don't remember what issues are out there, who proposed them, what the current versions are, what their status is, etc. There were several things I'd support and second, but I don't even know whether they are being considered anymore. Could the authors of the different proposals please go back, find the most recent version of your respective proposals, and repost it here, along with a status update? Thanks, John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: resounding nothingness
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:14:23AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: Maybe some clarification would be good, and once a final version is there, then make a call for a proposal. I'm a little unclear on what kind of clarification is needed. See Jochen's message. I echo his sentiments. Right now, I am *completely* confused. I don't remember what issues are out there, who proposed them, what the current versions are, what their status is, etc. There were several things I'd support and second, but I don't even know whether they are being considered anymore. Could the authors of the different proposals please go back, find the most recent version of your respective proposals, and repost it here, along with a status update? Thanks, John
Re: resounding nothingness
On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 09:39:36PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: I'm not sure how to proceed on this non-free issue. If no one thinks my most recent proposal is worth sponsoring, nor even criticising, I guess I should just drop it? [And, if no one cares to resurrect an earlier version, ...] Thanks, I am confused. Did not several people second earlier versions of your, and others', proposals? -- John
Re: Ad Hominem (was Re: Raul Miller is lying scum [Was: thoughts on potential outcomes for non-free ballot])
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:01:07AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: For example, after I proposed removing the Linux specific wording in the social contract, you introduced the same kind of change in yours. I did that following the suggestion of somebody on IRC (I forget who), in December. That's not how I remember it, but looking at the archive I see you're correct. My mistake, I apologize. Fine, but why is this whole discussion relevant? It doesn't matter who proposed something first; the final result is what matters. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFD: Use of @debian.org email addresses
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:20:57PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 05:39:17PM +1100, Sam Johnston wrote: I think the main problem of the DMUP WRT @d.o is the sole coverage of *incoming* mail, thus stating (at least to me) that it's more about being bandwidth-aware than being concious about the outward appereance. Since when did Debian turn from a group of hackers to a group of marketing suits? This idea that e-mail addresses confer a notion of speaking on behalf of the organization that owns the domain is entirely laughable. Let me give you a few examples: 1. In the early days of the Internet, virtually nobody had e-mail addresses aside from their employer or university. An e-mail from berkeley.edu does not mean this is a statement on behalf of Berkeley. 2. I used to have the address @southwind.net. southwind.net was my Internet provider. Southwind employees also has e-mail addresses @southwind.net, which looked the same as customer addresses. Would you automatically assume that anyone sending an e-mail from southwind.net spoke on behalf of the company? 3. I had the e-mail address @cs.twsu.edu, for the Computer Science department at Wichita State University. So did several thousand other students, faculty, and staff. Nobody was so stupid as to think that any e-mail from there was an official statement from the University. The list goes on and on. People today have @aol.com addresses or @earthlink.net addresses. Do you think that every one of those millions of people are representing their ISP in public? I really don't understand where this notion comes from. Furthermore, I believe that outgoing @d.o mail is a bigger problem than incoming mail, because that's when you actually appear as a DD to (at least a subset of) the internet. I don't care so much whether DDs get And here's a newsflash for you: *anyone*, not just Debian-related people, can set their From: address to be @debian.org. Any Debian policy will be rather ineffective combating that. believe DDs should limit their From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] header to Debian I'm tempted to use a then only the spammers will have @debian.org argument here :-) related activities and the big majority of the project seems to agree with me. Somewhere around 70 people is not even close to a majority of the developers. In fact, it's a small minority. -- John
Re: Ad Hominem (was Re: Raul Miller is lying scum [Was: thoughts on potential outcomes for non-free ballot])
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:01:07AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: For example, after I proposed removing the Linux specific wording in the social contract, you introduced the same kind of change in yours. I did that following the suggestion of somebody on IRC (I forget who), in December. That's not how I remember it, but looking at the archive I see you're correct. My mistake, I apologize. Fine, but why is this whole discussion relevant? It doesn't matter who proposed something first; the final result is what matters. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 01:08:59AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 11:27:37AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 11:41:59PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: You said you wanted things out of non-free. Um... he's posted the rest of that sentence at least twice, and out of non-free is not equivalent to in main. Yes, that did not occur to me at the time I read, which I way I granted that I may have misunderstood. However, that is not what Craig has accused me of. He has accused me of being a liar and deliberately deceitful. While he has shown evidence of a misunderstanding, he has not shown evidence of lying; that is the difference I note. Since he explicitly indicated not contributed at all, and since he's posted the complete sentence multiple times, it's really strange that you're claiming otherwise. Like I said, he's not showing evidence that I intentionally misrepresented him. He's showing evidence of a misunderstanding. Which is why I said if he had claimed I misunderstood, I would have apologized. (As I did with Luther, though it turned out I was right anyway.) But that was not his claim. He said I was a lying fuck. I maintain he is wrong on that. Um... he's prickly, but in this case I think you should at least read the complete sentence of his that you're referring to (the out of non-free sentence) before claiming it's difficult to know if you've misunderstood him. Or if not the whole sentence, at least read the second line. I have gone back and re-read it, which is why I say I can see the misunderstanding. Obviously I read too fast, or skimmed, or misremembered before. I don't recall exactly what happened. But the point remains too that it is not just this one sentence that gave me that idea; his other remarks lead me to that conclusion (such as saying that practicality always trumps idealogy, then there are no practical reasons that documentation should be a problem) too. That is why I said I may have misunderstood, because I am still not sure exactly where he stands. Though... he's convinced that you are intelligent enough to have read the entire sentence before responding to it. And, maybe he's right. Yup. I am also imperfect. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 01:08:59AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 11:27:37AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 11:41:59PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: You said you wanted things out of non-free. Um... he's posted the rest of that sentence at least twice, and out of non-free is not equivalent to in main. Yes, that did not occur to me at the time I read, which I way I granted that I may have misunderstood. However, that is not what Craig has accused me of. He has accused me of being a liar and deliberately deceitful. While he has shown evidence of a misunderstanding, he has not shown evidence of lying; that is the difference I note. Since he explicitly indicated not contributed at all, and since he's posted the complete sentence multiple times, it's really strange that you're claiming otherwise. Like I said, he's not showing evidence that I intentionally misrepresented him. He's showing evidence of a misunderstanding. Which is why I said if he had claimed I misunderstood, I would have apologized. (As I did with Luther, though it turned out I was right anyway.) But that was not his claim. He said I was a lying fuck. I maintain he is wrong on that. Um... he's prickly, but in this case I think you should at least read the complete sentence of his that you're referring to (the out of non-free sentence) before claiming it's difficult to know if you've misunderstood him. Or if not the whole sentence, at least read the second line. I have gone back and re-read it, which is why I say I can see the misunderstanding. Obviously I read too fast, or skimmed, or misremembered before. I don't recall exactly what happened. But the point remains too that it is not just this one sentence that gave me that idea; his other remarks lead me to that conclusion (such as saying that practicality always trumps idealogy, then there are no practical reasons that documentation should be a problem) too. That is why I said I may have misunderstood, because I am still not sure exactly where he stands. Though... he's convinced that you are intelligent enough to have read the entire sentence before responding to it. And, maybe he's right. Yup. I am also imperfect. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 11:27:37AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: Goerzen: : You yourself said that is what you would like to do. There is no need ^^^ : for me to make the accusation. This is Goerzen lying by claiming that i said i want to pollute main with non-free stuff. You said you wanted things out of non-free. You also said you were happy with non-free the way it is. You have also said that practical matters always trump idealogy. You have added that there is no practical reason that documentation in non-free needs to be considered non-free. From these statements, I arrived at the conclusion, which with hindsight I will grant may have been incorrect, that you wished to move these items into main. However, I do not owe you any apology. You called me a lying fuck, and: that is a lie. he is not miskenen or confused or misinformed. he is lying. there is no basis for even mistakenly believing that claim, he lied simply to make me and my position look bad by misrepresenting it. Given your conflicting statements on this list, I am not really certain what your position is, and the imprecise and over-hyped language in many of your posts make it difficult to grasp what exactly it is that you are supporting. There was no intentional effort to deceive on my part, and you continue to spread these mistruths. Had you accused me of misunderstanding you, I would readily apologize upon a clear explanation of your position. However, you have never even advanced that, so it is difficult to know if I truly have misunderstood you, and to what degree. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 11:27:37AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: Goerzen: : You yourself said that is what you would like to do. There is no need ^^^ : for me to make the accusation. This is Goerzen lying by claiming that i said i want to pollute main with non-free stuff. You said you wanted things out of non-free. You also said you were happy with non-free the way it is. You have also said that practical matters always trump idealogy. You have added that there is no practical reason that documentation in non-free needs to be considered non-free. From these statements, I arrived at the conclusion, which with hindsight I will grant may have been incorrect, that you wished to move these items into main. However, I do not owe you any apology. You called me a lying fuck, and: that is a lie. he is not miskenen or confused or misinformed. he is lying. there is no basis for even mistakenly believing that claim, he lied simply to make me and my position look bad by misrepresenting it. Given your conflicting statements on this list, I am not really certain what your position is, and the imprecise and over-hyped language in many of your posts make it difficult to grasp what exactly it is that you are supporting. There was no intentional effort to deceive on my part, and you continue to spread these mistruths. Had you accused me of misunderstanding you, I would readily apologize upon a clear explanation of your position. However, you have never even advanced that, so it is difficult to know if I truly have misunderstood you, and to what degree.
Re: Another Non-Free Proposal
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 09:01:51AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: http://gopher.quux.org:70/Computers/Debian/Mailing%20Lists/debian-devel/debian-devel.199811%7C/MBOX-MESSAGE/148 ^^ One word: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA :-) [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00405.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 12:08:09PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: no, i think the reason why he chose to round off is dishonest. this was obvious from what i wrote. No, the reason I chose to round off was because my terminal is 80 characters wide. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 09:09:04AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: in any case, you have shown yourself to be dishonest on numerous occasions in this long and tortuous argument. you have no care for truth, or honour - you will utter any lie in the name of your cause. Which is interesting statement, since you have yet to describe even one such occasion. you have a very short memory. apart from this instance of deceptive use of percantages, only a few days ago i outed your lying when you claimed that i had said something exactly opposite to what i was saying. there was no possibility that you were just misinterpreting or misunderstanding, you were deliberately lying about what i said in order to make you and your arguments look better. I recall no such incident, and in fact, no such incident took place. I can only take your lack of any sort of attribution or reference to mean you concede that I am right in this instance? craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.complete.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Another Non-Free Proposal
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 09:01:51AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: http://gopher.quux.org:70/Computers/Debian/Mailing%20Lists/debian-devel/debian-devel.199811%7C/MBOX-MESSAGE/148 ^^ One word: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA :-) [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00405.html
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 11:26:59AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: Oh c'mon. Just because I made a mistake doesn't mean that I'm dishonest. After all, you are the one that said your package has 0 entries in popcon[1], then tried to change it to used[2] once I had shown you to be incorrect (knowing full well that used is a different category in popcon), then said that I gave the impression that nobody was installing your packages, even when my own figures showed some of them were installed on 3% of the machines. This is being honest how. well, frankly, your use of percentages was a little dishonest to say the least, as it let you round-off many packages to '0'. I had no idea what the results would be before running the program, and did not alter it to adjust those results later. You have no basis to know whether I was being dishonest or not. Moreover, right from the start I said that they were percentages. I also published the code used to generate this for public inspection and analysis, with a complete change history. It includes the specific popcon file I used (so that the results can be validated even after the next popcon update, and so that they can be compared to popcon before the next update). you should have given actual numbers, and let people calculate the percentages The actual numbers are already in popcon. Implementing cat would probably not have helped much here. partly your fault for not being more clear or providing column headings that indicated percentages). i guess other readers might have missed that too. Quite possible; though using this as a basis for assuming I am being dishonest is quite a leap indeed. in any case, you have shown yourself to be dishonest on numerous occasions in this long and tortuous argument. you have no care for truth, or honour - you will utter any lie in the name of your cause. Which is interesting statement, since you have yet to describe even one such occasion.
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 12:08:09PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: no, i think the reason why he chose to round off is dishonest. this was obvious from what i wrote. No, the reason I chose to round off was because my terminal is 80 characters wide. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
[ General note: This message contains some history that may be of interest regarding the previous attempts to get a vote on the topic. ] On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 07:32:49AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 12:07:14AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:44:33AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: John, you are a fraud, you don't really want to resolve this issue, only If that were the case, why did I: 1. Get this issue to a vote back in 2000[1] (though that vote was later nullified); Nothing ever happened to this, so ... I refer you again to [1]. It was even voted on! There was also considerable controversy[4] over the voting method at the time. Ballots were also confusing and contradictory[5]. According to [2], the cause for the expiry seems to be related to then-Secretary Benham not having enough time to process the vote at the time. At [3], you can observe me trying to figure out why a vote wasn't happening. At [6], Secretary Benham announced the withdrawl of the vote due to the reasons in [2]. My response[7] clearly shows my displeasure that a vote was not being taken (I was somewhat excessive in my language, I think); though in hindsight, the considerable confusion and controversy over the vote itself may have made this a useful move. In November, 2002, I posted a revised[8] proposal, and indicated my intention to bring it through the GR process. New Secretary Srivastava indicated that the 2000 proposal was not dead; merely on hold[9], which, to the best of my knowledge, is still the case. I asked some questions about it in [10], and Manoj further clarified things in [11] and [12]. Thus, there is very substantial evidence that I attempted to move this forward to a resultion as much as possible. This is all a matter of public record, which you should have checked yourself before labeling me a fraud. It is crystal clear that you have no idea what you are talking about on that issue. 2. Second the proposals before us now, moving them closer to getting voted on now; No, the vote is a fraud and being dishonest, you are only interested in the options you propose, and fail to understand that people may have other opinions that yours. Also the condescending tone of the people What exactly about the vote is a fraud and dishonest? Do you assert that our voting mechanism is rigged? If so, you are talking to the wrong person about that; you should be proposing a Constitutional amendment or taking other action. All GRs to be voted on are listed in public. Votes are listed in public. How can it be dishonest when everybody can see for themselves exactly what it is that is being proposed? AND they can see for themselves all the discussion about it! I am well aware that opinions differ. If they did not, we would not be having these discussions. I will not, however, shrink from supporting that which I believe is right merely because it is controversial. 3. Oppose delaying tactics such as unnecessary surveys; Sure, instead choosing the other delaying tactic which result in unterminable flamewars until everyone is sick of it. I find it extremely disingenuous of you to say that my actions in calling for a vote now are somehow a delaying tactic. In fact, I think that you are deliberately misrepresenting me here. 4. Oppose GR proposals that cannot be actually voted on in any sane fashion due to being incompatible with procedures in the Constitution. (arg, it is difficult to resist being rude, arg, have to control myself ...) I don't understand that, it was not a GR proposal. It was a draft for what i considered the points that could be submitted to vote. You Uhm, if it was not a GR proposal, then why did your message[13] say non-free removal GR draft? disagreed, obviously, but instead on working with me as i asked you to find proper wording and such, you opposed it with administrative issues. I literally started trying to resolve this nearly *four years* ago. Not Yep, with total disregard of what the project actually want. How is bringing something to a democratic vote showing disregard for what the project actually wants? What better way is there to find out what the project wants than holding a democratic vote? Are you afraid that the project does not want what you do, or that your notion of what the project wants may be proven false? only can I tell you, up front and completely honestly, that I want this resolved; you can also see, as a matter of public record, that this has Yep, but you prefer stalling than having the risk of having it resolved against your proposal. First of all, my personal preferences have no bearing on the merits of any proposal, mine or otherwise. This is a classic ad hominem attack, and is toally meaningless. I will nevertheless defend my character, and point you to the narrative above detailing exactly how much I have pushed to get this to a vote, and thus
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 07:35:44AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 12:10:57AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:53:17AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:02:43PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. ah, because you used it on x86. wasn't that one of the arguments for removing non-free ? Huh? I totally do not follow what you're saying here. See Michael Blank argumentation about non-x86 arch in non-free. Can you give me a URL? Finding individual arguments in this thread is not easily done. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. And how would removing non-free from the debian archives help here. It wouldn't. That's why I said it's not really germane. Err, another misleading affirmation, actually it was Steve who said that not you. Oops, sorry Steve; it sounded like something I wrote. s/I said/he said/. I retract the incorrect attribution. It is simply not possible to discuss people who are not honest and try every trick in the book to come out right, even if they are wrong, as you evidently are. Oh c'mon. Just because I made a mistake doesn't mean that I'm dishonest. After all, you are the one that said your package has 0 entries in popcon[1], then tried to change it to used[2] once I had shown you to be incorrect (knowing full well that used is a different category in popcon), then said that I gave the impression that nobody was installing your packages, even when my own figures showed some of them were installed on 3% of the machines. This is being honest how. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00479.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00512.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00507.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:53:17AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:02:43PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. ah, because you used it on x86. wasn't that one of the arguments for removing non-free ? Huh? I totally do not follow what you're saying here. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. And how would removing non-free from the debian archives help here. It wouldn't. That's why I said it's not really germane. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:44:33AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: John, you are a fraud, you don't really want to resolve this issue, only If that were the case, why did I: 1. Get this issue to a vote back in 2000[1] (though that vote was later nullified); 2. Second the proposals before us now, moving them closer to getting voted on now; 3. Oppose delaying tactics such as unnecessary surveys; 4. Oppose GR proposals that cannot be actually voted on in any sane fashion due to being incompatible with procedures in the Constitution. I literally started trying to resolve this nearly *four years* ago. Not only can I tell you, up front and completely honestly, that I want this resolved; you can also see, as a matter of public record, that this has been the case for years. Votes were taken (though never counted) on my own 2000 proposal, which -- if you were to read it -- you'll see not only resolved the non-free issue but also the social contract one. Go fix some RC bugs, and help make sarge releasable instead of loosing everyone's time with unending discussions you have no intentions to concretize anyway. I guess unsubscribing from -vote is too difficult for you? You might notice that I *am* fixing RC bugs, such as #221329. See you when you have actually proposed something, and there is an Where have you been? I find this incredibly ironic that people are telling me to shut up until I propose something, when I already did *ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO*. I simply have no response for that one. actual vote going on, and then we can discuss things. And expect a few Oh come on, we can't discuss things untill a CFV is issued? What kind of a silly rule is that? ammendment from my part if your proposals are as ridicoulous and dishonest as the ones that have been passing around lately. [1] http://www.debian.org/vote/2000/vote_0008
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 07:35:44AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 12:10:57AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:53:17AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:02:43PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. ah, because you used it on x86. wasn't that one of the arguments for removing non-free ? Huh? I totally do not follow what you're saying here. See Michael Blank argumentation about non-x86 arch in non-free. Can you give me a URL? Finding individual arguments in this thread is not easily done. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. And how would removing non-free from the debian archives help here. It wouldn't. That's why I said it's not really germane. Err, another misleading affirmation, actually it was Steve who said that not you. Oops, sorry Steve; it sounded like something I wrote. s/I said/he said/. I retract the incorrect attribution. It is simply not possible to discuss people who are not honest and try every trick in the book to come out right, even if they are wrong, as you evidently are. Oh c'mon. Just because I made a mistake doesn't mean that I'm dishonest. After all, you are the one that said your package has 0 entries in popcon[1], then tried to change it to used[2] once I had shown you to be incorrect (knowing full well that used is a different category in popcon), then said that I gave the impression that nobody was installing your packages, even when my own figures showed some of them were installed on 3% of the machines. This is being honest how. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00479.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00512.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg00507.html
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
[ General note: This message contains some history that may be of interest regarding the previous attempts to get a vote on the topic. ] On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 07:32:49AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 12:07:14AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:44:33AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: John, you are a fraud, you don't really want to resolve this issue, only If that were the case, why did I: 1. Get this issue to a vote back in 2000[1] (though that vote was later nullified); Nothing ever happened to this, so ... I refer you again to [1]. It was even voted on! There was also considerable controversy[4] over the voting method at the time. Ballots were also confusing and contradictory[5]. According to [2], the cause for the expiry seems to be related to then-Secretary Benham not having enough time to process the vote at the time. At [3], you can observe me trying to figure out why a vote wasn't happening. At [6], Secretary Benham announced the withdrawl of the vote due to the reasons in [2]. My response[7] clearly shows my displeasure that a vote was not being taken (I was somewhat excessive in my language, I think); though in hindsight, the considerable confusion and controversy over the vote itself may have made this a useful move. In November, 2002, I posted a revised[8] proposal, and indicated my intention to bring it through the GR process. New Secretary Srivastava indicated that the 2000 proposal was not dead; merely on hold[9], which, to the best of my knowledge, is still the case. I asked some questions about it in [10], and Manoj further clarified things in [11] and [12]. Thus, there is very substantial evidence that I attempted to move this forward to a resultion as much as possible. This is all a matter of public record, which you should have checked yourself before labeling me a fraud. It is crystal clear that you have no idea what you are talking about on that issue. 2. Second the proposals before us now, moving them closer to getting voted on now; No, the vote is a fraud and being dishonest, you are only interested in the options you propose, and fail to understand that people may have other opinions that yours. Also the condescending tone of the people What exactly about the vote is a fraud and dishonest? Do you assert that our voting mechanism is rigged? If so, you are talking to the wrong person about that; you should be proposing a Constitutional amendment or taking other action. All GRs to be voted on are listed in public. Votes are listed in public. How can it be dishonest when everybody can see for themselves exactly what it is that is being proposed? AND they can see for themselves all the discussion about it! I am well aware that opinions differ. If they did not, we would not be having these discussions. I will not, however, shrink from supporting that which I believe is right merely because it is controversial. 3. Oppose delaying tactics such as unnecessary surveys; Sure, instead choosing the other delaying tactic which result in unterminable flamewars until everyone is sick of it. I find it extremely disingenuous of you to say that my actions in calling for a vote now are somehow a delaying tactic. In fact, I think that you are deliberately misrepresenting me here. 4. Oppose GR proposals that cannot be actually voted on in any sane fashion due to being incompatible with procedures in the Constitution. (arg, it is difficult to resist being rude, arg, have to control myself ...) I don't understand that, it was not a GR proposal. It was a draft for what i considered the points that could be submitted to vote. You Uhm, if it was not a GR proposal, then why did your message[13] say non-free removal GR draft? disagreed, obviously, but instead on working with me as i asked you to find proper wording and such, you opposed it with administrative issues. I literally started trying to resolve this nearly *four years* ago. Not Yep, with total disregard of what the project actually want. How is bringing something to a democratic vote showing disregard for what the project actually wants? What better way is there to find out what the project wants than holding a democratic vote? Are you afraid that the project does not want what you do, or that your notion of what the project wants may be proven false? only can I tell you, up front and completely honestly, that I want this resolved; you can also see, as a matter of public record, that this has Yep, but you prefer stalling than having the risk of having it resolved against your proposal. First of all, my personal preferences have no bearing on the merits of any proposal, mine or otherwise. This is a classic ad hominem attack, and is toally meaningless. I will nevertheless defend my character, and point you to the narrative above detailing exactly how much I have pushed to get this to a vote, and thus
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:52:49PM -0500, Joe Nahmias wrote: been exceeded, in the (bit over) two weeks since the GR was proposed there haven't been enough seconds for it to be called to a vote. Here are the posts pertaining to the vote as I have followed them (please post corrections, the secretary has final discretion, etc...): Can you please repost the proposal, and modifications, or at least links to them? I am confused by all the different proposals and possibly proposals soon proposals here, and am not quite certain just what it is that could be seconded. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 01:26:30PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Ok, will you help me draft something, i am not really a good administrative writer, but was thinking about something like : begin of draft Poll to be submitted to vote Why would we want something non-binding? I cannot think of a single situation in which that will actually resolve anything. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 01:07:47PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 08:37:41AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: That's not true at all. Even packages that are well-maintained can be of very low quality in non-free, especially if you are not running on i386. This is due in part to a lack of autobuilders for non-free. What has that to do. If the package is only built on i386, or on a reduced set of arches, this doesn't imply lower quality, just that it has not been ported. And the fact that some arches don't really need it is a good thing for its eventual removal. If I install package foo on my Alpha, and that package has known security bugs and can be crashed easily, it's of decidedly low quality, even if package foo on i386 has had fixes for all of the above for over a year. As an Alpha user, the quality of a package on i386 is completely irrelevant. But you may trust another source, too. Debian does not have a monopoly on trust. Nope. Outside packages are not to be trusted, and most of the time of lower quality. Then that is your own personal decision. I have found multiple, quality, trustworthy sites. For instance: * Branden's experimental X * Blackdown's JDK archive on Ibiblio * Certain PowerPC X archives at different times Packages not distributed by Debian can take advantage of this utility too. They just need to add a send-to header to the control file /usr/share/bug/$package/control. A, nice, this would be fine for the users, but decidedly not for the maintainer. Why? Adding one single file to the package, which takes about 30 seconds and must be done only once, is a huge burden? I think it's rather far-fetched to claim that an operating system is usable as a tool for mass murder. Sure, when you embedd it in missiles and such, no ? Do those actually have an operating system in the conventional sense? To be sure, this restriction is more of one on paper than one that is practically enforced; indeed, it is really impossible to enforce, and as far as I am aware, we do not enforce it. We also maintain mirrors in countries that do not have those restrictions. Yeah, but i am not at all happy that each and everyone of my uploads is sent to the US governement. Why should the US government be prevented from using Debian? And, more to the point, even if the above does happen, what is the problem, considering they could just as easily get it all from any one of dozens of public mirrors? It can already, where is the problem. If that is the case, then there should be no problem with removing non-free. Yeah, sure. but there is no problem too in keeping it. I disagree with that. to developing a free alternative. Just because you are a business doesn't mean that you have lots of money Well, in that case, you can go to the author of the piece of software you need, and reach an agreement with him. What is the problem with that. I don't think that's particularly likely to happen. to spare. For instance, someone that works part-time from home may not be in a position to support these things. Also, it is not necessarily Crap. Most of the licence apply to redistribution, rarely to use. And anyway, those are really a minority of the non-free cases. Do you have figures to back that up? possible to buy rights to non-free software, or it may be prohibitively expensive; or the original developers may be unreachable. Yeah, that is another problem. Still, what does it change for him that debian distribute non-free or not, nothing. So where is the problem with removing non-free? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 03:26:44PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Why would we want something non-binding? I cannot think of a single situation in which that will actually resolve anything. Why not ? Once we have the result of this, first it will put a stop to the whole speculation on what the DDs really want and enable us to go forward constructively than all this mess that is surrounding this question, and second, we can then propose a 3:1 social contract GR, which will benefit from an idea of what will happen later. But we could just as well propose a 3:1 social contract GR now, without the intervenng lag of a poll, and let it stand or fall on its own merits; and if people prefer to have some other wording, amendments can be proposed under the procedures we already have. Like, you know, if the majority of the DDs want to keep non-free, then there is no sense in having the social contract GR remove the words about the non-free issue, and we can have a clean GR which only does the nice cosmetic changes Branden has proposed. We can have both, even without the poll; one GR and one hostile amendment that get voted on at once. I personally would not see an informal poll as necessarily indicitive of how the results would play out in a formal vote. I suspect others would share that sentiment. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Another Non-Free Proposal
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 11:58:46AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 09:53:37AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: I don't expect anyone to want to set up a non-free archive until a decision is reached to remove non-free. Doing so would go a long way to proving it is possible, and thus towards defeating their own preference. Huh? Why do you think the only people able to setup a non-free archive are ones that want to see it kept in Debian? I did not say *able*. I said *want*. If you are going to argue with me, please at least argue with what I actually stated. And if you think that doing so would go a long way toward getting non-free *out* of Debian, why don't *you* do it? Set it up, make sure it works, maintain it for a few months, then pass it on to people who care about it. I have no interest in a non-free archive, and besides, if I find something Debian is doing to be distasteful, what makes you think that me doing it personally would be any less objectionable to me? Personally, I don't understand how people can, on the one hand, suggest nonfree.org as a reasonable way of helping our users, and on the other hand refuse to work on it claiming such behaviour would be unethical, even though it supports the arguments they're making and would aid in a goal they seem to think is desirable. First of all, logically speaking, any possible contradiction between different someone makes has no bearing on deciding whether either of them is true. Now then, I don't see a contradiction at all. For those people that value non-free, I can suggest an alternative solution that would make them happy, and which I find *LESS* objectionable than having non-free as part of Debian. That is, to me, a gain. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 11:59:03PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:16:06AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Here is the output: Package NameSection Vote Old Rcnt Unkn Totl xpdf-chinese-simplified non-free/text 00000 xpdf-chinese-traditionalnon-free/text 00000 xpdf-japanese non-free/text 00011 xpdf-korean non-free/text 00000 The above xpdf-* packages don't contain any binaries, so no results will be collected. There are some other packages like that in non-free too. On the other hand, the most popular of those was only installed on 1% of computers, so it doesn't really move their placement much. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:07:13PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 08:54:32AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Ah, sure, but see what happened last time this came up. And it would be hypocrit. The real issue is what do we want to do about non-free, not that we want to ammend the social contract. Without clarifying our position on this, the social contract GR will probably fail, and if it pass, it would be by fooling the voters about the real intentions of the GR, like Branden tried to do. Well, why not have a non-free GR, and add a social contract hostile amendment, so that people can vote on both at once, and rank their preferences appropriately? I see no way that an informal poll has any bearing on who is a hypocrite, or flushes out the intentions of people that propose things. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:26:18PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 09:19:37AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Well, why not have a non-free GR, and add a social contract hostile amendment, so that people can vote on both at once, and rank their preferences appropriately? Why ? let's not complicate things. The real issue, is what do we want to do about non-free, the rest is just administrative stuff, which means that things will just drag in length and nothing will happen. It's not complicating things; having a separate poll is. So instead of ranking non-free and further discussion, you rank non-free, non-free+social contract, and further discussion. Not all that difficult. I see no way that an informal poll has any bearing on who is a hypocrite, or flushes out the intentions of people that propose things. What would be hypocrit is to do the social contract thingy without clearly saying what we are gona do about non-free. The only way clearly say what will happen is to make it part of the ballot. Your poll will *not* say what will happen, and nobody else here can say what will happen either, because we do not know how a vote will turn out. Once a decision is reached, even an informal one, it is clear what will hapen once the social-contract GR gets put to vote, and this will let people vote accrodying to this decision. Not necessarily; what makes you think that people voting on a GR will do so in the same proportions as those that discuss on -vote or participate in the poll? Or let's just start with the vote about non-free, and worry about the social contract later. That's another option which doesn't require a poll. But let's stop discussing this in an empty way, and start a real vote. Yes, that is what I am trying to say, too. I've been waiting for this since 2000 :-) -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:45:54PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: The only way clearly say what will happen is to make it part of the ballot. Your poll will *not* say what will happen, and nobody else here can say what will happen either, because we do not know how a vote will turn out. Why are you opposing this. Just for the chance to discuss this to death another year or so ? No; for precisely the opposite reason. I want a vote now, and no poll to delay it. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 03:36:58PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:17:25PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: We'd need somebody good enough at statistics to measure the error popcon introduces. I don't think it's in the order of the S/N ratio, though. Yep, but the package i maintain have 0 entries in popcon, while i know this is not the real case. This means infinite error ratio, no ? What package is that? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:12:39PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: What package is that? ocaml-docs, ocaml-book-fr, ocaml-book-en, unicorn, unicorn-source. maybe i missed some, but at least some of those where in this category. From the raw popcon output: PackageVote Old Rcnt Unknown ocaml-book-en 0 0 019 ocaml-book-fr 0 0 010 ocaml-doc 0 0 054 unicorn1 0 3 0 unicorn-source 0 0 0 7 The results do show that these packages are installed. In fact, from my own results, I showed that 3% of people had ocaml-doc installed. These figures support that. I'm not sure where you got that idea that popcon showed that nobody had installed these packages. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:35:42PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 10:17:50AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Taken from the data you quoted : PackageVote Old Rcnt Unknown ocaml-book-en 0 0 019 ocaml-book-en non-free/doc 000 11 ocaml-book-fr 0 0 010 ocaml-book-fr non-free/doc 000 00 ocaml-doc 0 0 054 ocaml-doc non-free/doc 000 33 unicorn1 0 3 0 unicorn non-free/net 000 00 unicorn-source 0 0 0 7 unicorn-source non-free/net 000 00 So, 3 out of 5 were indeed marked as not being used in the data you presented as argument. This means that it seems that the data you provided were false and not can not be used for this kind of discussion. No it does not. You claimed that the packages did not show up as being installed in popcon. That is not true. Only one package above actually has binaries; the usage statistics are not collected for docs, but as you can plainly see, the installation statistics are. The results do show that these packages are installed. In fact, from my own results, I showed that 3% of people had ocaml-doc installed. These figures support that. Well, from your own mail. I'm not sure where you got that idea that popcon showed that nobody had installed these packages. I hope it is clear now. No, it's not. I show that 3% installed ocaml-doc. You have even quoted that figure. My data was based on percentage and decimal places truncated; therefore, for the packages that had less than 1% use, it will rightly show up as 0%; not that the difference was significant, and you did have packages with greater than 1% use. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Wed, Dec 24, 2003 at 08:43:11PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: The next release of Debian will not be accompanied by a non-free section; there will be no more stable releases of the non-free section. Uploads to the non-free section of the archive will be disabled as soon as is feasible. The Debian project will cease active support of the non-free section. Seconded. -- John signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:44:34PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:40:40PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Well, the error ratio is something like the correctly correctly classified examples divided by the wrong ones or soemthing such. I know my packages are used, let's say by 5 peoples. but John reported nobody using it, so 5/0 - inifity. You claimed that I reported nobody installing it. That is false. popcon does indeed show that nobody is using those doc packages, but as has already been documented here, popcon does not tabulate usage for doc-only packages. popcon did show usage for your binary package. Where is the inaccuracy? No doubt there is a margin of error, but your attempts to deduce it are not very convincing. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:11:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: So, let's start from my poll draft, and let's vote on it. What do you thinkg ? Something like : I think that it's impossible to vote yes or no to a GR that contains 5 different, mutually exclusive, options. Consider the below. How would you interpret a yes vote to the entire text? And how would you interpret a no vote to the entire text? (Granted, Condorcet doesn't use yes/no, but the principle applies.) There is a way to do this per the constitution... the below isn't it. -- John --- start non-free removal GR draft Provided the social contract get's ammended by a 3:1 majority to let us act accordyingly to this vote, we will now take a decision about what we want to do about the non-free archive on the debian servers. Proposition A : Keep non-free. Rationale : non-free is usefull for our user who needs it, as a bridge for a given piece of software who may one day become non-free, and for other reasons. So let's keep it. (No social contract change is needed) Proposition B : Remove non-free. Rationale : non-free is the epythoma of evil, let's purge it from our servers :)) (well, not seriously, but you are better placed to provide a rationale here). (Needs a social contract change though) Proposition C : Remove the non-free packages case by case. Rationale : the non-freeness of the packages in non-free is of varying quality, so let's look at it case per case, and remove those that have no chance to ever becoming free, those that are badly maintained and nobody cares about and those that have a free replacement. (No social contract change is needed) Proposition D : Remove the none-free packages case by case, but also provide infrastructure for actively making non-free packages not needed anymore. Rationale : same as above, but we additionnally will provide guidance to users of non-free packages about what free alternative best suits them, and an infrastructure for discussing licencing changes with upstream and/or orienting interested developers to where they can help free the package or improve the alternatives. It would be the non-free maintainers packages responsability to manage this, on infrastructure provided by the debian project. (Social contract could be changed to mention we support users, but actively encourage people to migrate from non-free software to free replacements). Proposition E : Remove non-free, as well as any hint of non-free packages still hiding in main, the whole of contrib and all non-free packag installers. Rationale : after all, why show favoritism for the packages in main whose we were not honest enough to move into non-free, contrib is of no use without main, and installer of non-free stuff are of no use without the non-free stuff they install, and thus don't belong into debian. --- end non-free removal GR draft Friendly, Sven -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:05:05PM -0500, Joe Nahmias wrote: Can you please repost the proposal, and modifications, or at least links to them? My post included both the Message-IDs and links to the messages in the archive. Is that not sufficient? Ahh; my apologies. Looks like I just read that too fast. Thanks for the informative reply. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 07:33:56PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Also, installing java stuff from third party sources is a pain. See for example the problem with mozilla-cvs and mozilla-snapshot, which you have to hand fix in the postinst. Also, there is no 1.4 .deb for powerpc for example. I'm not sure how this is germane to the discussion. We've already established that there are no packages of recent Java implementations that we *can* distribute in non-free, so it doesn't affect the question of keeping non-free. Well, it establish that third party debian packages are in general of lower quality than debian debian packages, even those which are in non-free. No, it sought to establish that certain repositories were of lower quality. It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:44:33AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: John, you are a fraud, you don't really want to resolve this issue, only If that were the case, why did I: 1. Get this issue to a vote back in 2000[1] (though that vote was later nullified); 2. Second the proposals before us now, moving them closer to getting voted on now; 3. Oppose delaying tactics such as unnecessary surveys; 4. Oppose GR proposals that cannot be actually voted on in any sane fashion due to being incompatible with procedures in the Constitution. I literally started trying to resolve this nearly *four years* ago. Not only can I tell you, up front and completely honestly, that I want this resolved; you can also see, as a matter of public record, that this has been the case for years. Votes were taken (though never counted) on my own 2000 proposal, which -- if you were to read it -- you'll see not only resolved the non-free issue but also the social contract one. Go fix some RC bugs, and help make sarge releasable instead of loosing everyone's time with unending discussions you have no intentions to concretize anyway. I guess unsubscribing from -vote is too difficult for you? You might notice that I *am* fixing RC bugs, such as #221329. See you when you have actually proposed something, and there is an Where have you been? I find this incredibly ironic that people are telling me to shut up until I propose something, when I already did *ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO*. I simply have no response for that one. actual vote going on, and then we can discuss things. And expect a few Oh come on, we can't discuss things untill a CFV is issued? What kind of a silly rule is that? ammendment from my part if your proposals are as ridicoulous and dishonest as the ones that have been passing around lately. [1] http://www.debian.org/vote/2000/vote_0008 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:53:17AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:02:43PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. ah, because you used it on x86. wasn't that one of the arguments for removing non-free ? Huh? I totally do not follow what you're saying here. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. And how would removing non-free from the debian archives help here. It wouldn't. That's why I said it's not really germane. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:52:49PM -0500, Joe Nahmias wrote: been exceeded, in the (bit over) two weeks since the GR was proposed there haven't been enough seconds for it to be called to a vote. Here are the posts pertaining to the vote as I have followed them (please post corrections, the secretary has final discretion, etc...): Can you please repost the proposal, and modifications, or at least links to them? I am confused by all the different proposals and possibly proposals soon proposals here, and am not quite certain just what it is that could be seconded. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:07:13PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 08:54:32AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Ah, sure, but see what happened last time this came up. And it would be hypocrit. The real issue is what do we want to do about non-free, not that we want to ammend the social contract. Without clarifying our position on this, the social contract GR will probably fail, and if it pass, it would be by fooling the voters about the real intentions of the GR, like Branden tried to do. Well, why not have a non-free GR, and add a social contract hostile amendment, so that people can vote on both at once, and rank their preferences appropriately? I see no way that an informal poll has any bearing on who is a hypocrite, or flushes out the intentions of people that propose things. -- John
Re: Another Non-Free Proposal
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 11:58:46AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 09:53:37AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: I don't expect anyone to want to set up a non-free archive until a decision is reached to remove non-free. Doing so would go a long way to proving it is possible, and thus towards defeating their own preference. Huh? Why do you think the only people able to setup a non-free archive are ones that want to see it kept in Debian? I did not say *able*. I said *want*. If you are going to argue with me, please at least argue with what I actually stated. And if you think that doing so would go a long way toward getting non-free *out* of Debian, why don't *you* do it? Set it up, make sure it works, maintain it for a few months, then pass it on to people who care about it. I have no interest in a non-free archive, and besides, if I find something Debian is doing to be distasteful, what makes you think that me doing it personally would be any less objectionable to me? Personally, I don't understand how people can, on the one hand, suggest nonfree.org as a reasonable way of helping our users, and on the other hand refuse to work on it claiming such behaviour would be unethical, even though it supports the arguments they're making and would aid in a goal they seem to think is desirable. First of all, logically speaking, any possible contradiction between different someone makes has no bearing on deciding whether either of them is true. Now then, I don't see a contradiction at all. For those people that value non-free, I can suggest an alternative solution that would make them happy, and which I find *LESS* objectionable than having non-free as part of Debian. That is, to me, a gain. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 03:36:58PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:17:25PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: We'd need somebody good enough at statistics to measure the error popcon introduces. I don't think it's in the order of the S/N ratio, though. Yep, but the package i maintain have 0 entries in popcon, while i know this is not the real case. This means infinite error ratio, no ? What package is that?
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 03:26:44PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Why would we want something non-binding? I cannot think of a single situation in which that will actually resolve anything. Why not ? Once we have the result of this, first it will put a stop to the whole speculation on what the DDs really want and enable us to go forward constructively than all this mess that is surrounding this question, and second, we can then propose a 3:1 social contract GR, which will benefit from an idea of what will happen later. But we could just as well propose a 3:1 social contract GR now, without the intervenng lag of a poll, and let it stand or fall on its own merits; and if people prefer to have some other wording, amendments can be proposed under the procedures we already have. Like, you know, if the majority of the DDs want to keep non-free, then there is no sense in having the social contract GR remove the words about the non-free issue, and we can have a clean GR which only does the nice cosmetic changes Branden has proposed. We can have both, even without the poll; one GR and one hostile amendment that get voted on at once. I personally would not see an informal poll as necessarily indicitive of how the results would play out in a formal vote. I suspect others would share that sentiment. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:26:18PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 09:19:37AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Well, why not have a non-free GR, and add a social contract hostile amendment, so that people can vote on both at once, and rank their preferences appropriately? Why ? let's not complicate things. The real issue, is what do we want to do about non-free, the rest is just administrative stuff, which means that things will just drag in length and nothing will happen. It's not complicating things; having a separate poll is. So instead of ranking non-free and further discussion, you rank non-free, non-free+social contract, and further discussion. Not all that difficult. I see no way that an informal poll has any bearing on who is a hypocrite, or flushes out the intentions of people that propose things. What would be hypocrit is to do the social contract thingy without clearly saying what we are gona do about non-free. The only way clearly say what will happen is to make it part of the ballot. Your poll will *not* say what will happen, and nobody else here can say what will happen either, because we do not know how a vote will turn out. Once a decision is reached, even an informal one, it is clear what will hapen once the social-contract GR gets put to vote, and this will let people vote accrodying to this decision. Not necessarily; what makes you think that people voting on a GR will do so in the same proportions as those that discuss on -vote or participate in the poll? Or let's just start with the vote about non-free, and worry about the social contract later. That's another option which doesn't require a poll. But let's stop discussing this in an empty way, and start a real vote. Yes, that is what I am trying to say, too. I've been waiting for this since 2000 :-) -- John
Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 01:07:47PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 08:37:41AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: That's not true at all. Even packages that are well-maintained can be of very low quality in non-free, especially if you are not running on i386. This is due in part to a lack of autobuilders for non-free. What has that to do. If the package is only built on i386, or on a reduced set of arches, this doesn't imply lower quality, just that it has not been ported. And the fact that some arches don't really need it is a good thing for its eventual removal. If I install package foo on my Alpha, and that package has known security bugs and can be crashed easily, it's of decidedly low quality, even if package foo on i386 has had fixes for all of the above for over a year. As an Alpha user, the quality of a package on i386 is completely irrelevant. But you may trust another source, too. Debian does not have a monopoly on trust. Nope. Outside packages are not to be trusted, and most of the time of lower quality. Then that is your own personal decision. I have found multiple, quality, trustworthy sites. For instance: * Branden's experimental X * Blackdown's JDK archive on Ibiblio * Certain PowerPC X archives at different times Packages not distributed by Debian can take advantage of this utility too. They just need to add a send-to header to the control file /usr/share/bug/$package/control. A, nice, this would be fine for the users, but decidedly not for the maintainer. Why? Adding one single file to the package, which takes about 30 seconds and must be done only once, is a huge burden? I think it's rather far-fetched to claim that an operating system is usable as a tool for mass murder. Sure, when you embedd it in missiles and such, no ? Do those actually have an operating system in the conventional sense? To be sure, this restriction is more of one on paper than one that is practically enforced; indeed, it is really impossible to enforce, and as far as I am aware, we do not enforce it. We also maintain mirrors in countries that do not have those restrictions. Yeah, but i am not at all happy that each and everyone of my uploads is sent to the US governement. Why should the US government be prevented from using Debian? And, more to the point, even if the above does happen, what is the problem, considering they could just as easily get it all from any one of dozens of public mirrors? It can already, where is the problem. If that is the case, then there should be no problem with removing non-free. Yeah, sure. but there is no problem too in keeping it. I disagree with that. to developing a free alternative. Just because you are a business doesn't mean that you have lots of money Well, in that case, you can go to the author of the piece of software you need, and reach an agreement with him. What is the problem with that. I don't think that's particularly likely to happen. to spare. For instance, someone that works part-time from home may not be in a position to support these things. Also, it is not necessarily Crap. Most of the licence apply to redistribution, rarely to use. And anyway, those are really a minority of the non-free cases. Do you have figures to back that up? possible to buy rights to non-free software, or it may be prohibitively expensive; or the original developers may be unreachable. Yeah, that is another problem. Still, what does it change for him that debian distribute non-free or not, nothing. So where is the problem with removing non-free?
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 11:59:03PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:16:06AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Here is the output: Package NameSection Vote Old Rcnt Unkn Totl xpdf-chinese-simplified non-free/text 00000 xpdf-chinese-traditionalnon-free/text 00000 xpdf-japanese non-free/text 00011 xpdf-korean non-free/text 00000 The above xpdf-* packages don't contain any binaries, so no results will be collected. There are some other packages like that in non-free too. On the other hand, the most popular of those was only installed on 1% of computers, so it doesn't really move their placement much. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:12:39PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: What package is that? ocaml-docs, ocaml-book-fr, ocaml-book-en, unicorn, unicorn-source. maybe i missed some, but at least some of those where in this category. From the raw popcon output: PackageVote Old Rcnt Unknown ocaml-book-en 0 0 019 ocaml-book-fr 0 0 010 ocaml-doc 0 0 054 unicorn1 0 3 0 unicorn-source 0 0 0 7 The results do show that these packages are installed. In fact, from my own results, I showed that 3% of people had ocaml-doc installed. These figures support that. I'm not sure where you got that idea that popcon showed that nobody had installed these packages. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:35:42PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 10:17:50AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Taken from the data you quoted : PackageVote Old Rcnt Unknown ocaml-book-en 0 0 019 ocaml-book-en non-free/doc 000 11 ocaml-book-fr 0 0 010 ocaml-book-fr non-free/doc 000 00 ocaml-doc 0 0 054 ocaml-doc non-free/doc 000 33 unicorn1 0 3 0 unicorn non-free/net 000 00 unicorn-source 0 0 0 7 unicorn-source non-free/net 000 00 So, 3 out of 5 were indeed marked as not being used in the data you presented as argument. This means that it seems that the data you provided were false and not can not be used for this kind of discussion. No it does not. You claimed that the packages did not show up as being installed in popcon. That is not true. Only one package above actually has binaries; the usage statistics are not collected for docs, but as you can plainly see, the installation statistics are. The results do show that these packages are installed. In fact, from my own results, I showed that 3% of people had ocaml-doc installed. These figures support that. Well, from your own mail. I'm not sure where you got that idea that popcon showed that nobody had installed these packages. I hope it is clear now. No, it's not. I show that 3% installed ocaml-doc. You have even quoted that figure. My data was based on percentage and decimal places truncated; therefore, for the packages that had less than 1% use, it will rightly show up as 0%; not that the difference was significant, and you did have packages with greater than 1% use. -- John
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:05:05PM -0500, Joe Nahmias wrote: Can you please repost the proposal, and modifications, or at least links to them? My post included both the Message-IDs and links to the messages in the archive. Is that not sufficient? Ahh; my apologies. Looks like I just read that too fast. Thanks for the informative reply. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:45:54PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: The only way clearly say what will happen is to make it part of the ballot. Your poll will *not* say what will happen, and nobody else here can say what will happen either, because we do not know how a vote will turn out. Why are you opposing this. Just for the chance to discuss this to death another year or so ? No; for precisely the opposite reason. I want a vote now, and no poll to delay it. -- John
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:44:34PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 04:40:40PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Well, the error ratio is something like the correctly correctly classified examples divided by the wrong ones or soemthing such. I know my packages are used, let's say by 5 peoples. but John reported nobody using it, so 5/0 - inifity. You claimed that I reported nobody installing it. That is false. popcon does indeed show that nobody is using those doc packages, but as has already been documented here, popcon does not tabulate usage for doc-only packages. popcon did show usage for your binary package. Where is the inaccuracy? No doubt there is a margin of error, but your attempts to deduce it are not very convincing.
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 01:26:30PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Ok, will you help me draft something, i am not really a good administrative writer, but was thinking about something like : begin of draft Poll to be submitted to vote Why would we want something non-binding? I cannot think of a single situation in which that will actually resolve anything. -- John
Re: Draft for a non-fee poll (Was: Re: Let's vote already...)
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 05:11:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: So, let's start from my poll draft, and let's vote on it. What do you thinkg ? Something like : I think that it's impossible to vote yes or no to a GR that contains 5 different, mutually exclusive, options. Consider the below. How would you interpret a yes vote to the entire text? And how would you interpret a no vote to the entire text? (Granted, Condorcet doesn't use yes/no, but the principle applies.) There is a way to do this per the constitution... the below isn't it. -- John --- start non-free removal GR draft Provided the social contract get's ammended by a 3:1 majority to let us act accordyingly to this vote, we will now take a decision about what we want to do about the non-free archive on the debian servers. Proposition A : Keep non-free. Rationale : non-free is usefull for our user who needs it, as a bridge for a given piece of software who may one day become non-free, and for other reasons. So let's keep it. (No social contract change is needed) Proposition B : Remove non-free. Rationale : non-free is the epythoma of evil, let's purge it from our servers :)) (well, not seriously, but you are better placed to provide a rationale here). (Needs a social contract change though) Proposition C : Remove the non-free packages case by case. Rationale : the non-freeness of the packages in non-free is of varying quality, so let's look at it case per case, and remove those that have no chance to ever becoming free, those that are badly maintained and nobody cares about and those that have a free replacement. (No social contract change is needed) Proposition D : Remove the none-free packages case by case, but also provide infrastructure for actively making non-free packages not needed anymore. Rationale : same as above, but we additionnally will provide guidance to users of non-free packages about what free alternative best suits them, and an infrastructure for discussing licencing changes with upstream and/or orienting interested developers to where they can help free the package or improve the alternatives. It would be the non-free maintainers packages responsability to manage this, on infrastructure provided by the debian project. (Social contract could be changed to mention we support users, but actively encourage people to migrate from non-free software to free replacements). Proposition E : Remove non-free, as well as any hint of non-free packages still hiding in main, the whole of contrib and all non-free packag installers. Rationale : after all, why show favoritism for the packages in main whose we were not honest enough to move into non-free, contrib is of no use without main, and installer of non-free stuff are of no use without the non-free stuff they install, and thus don't belong into debian. --- end non-free removal GR draft Friendly, Sven -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 07:33:56PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Also, installing java stuff from third party sources is a pain. See for example the problem with mozilla-cvs and mozilla-snapshot, which you have to hand fix in the postinst. Also, there is no 1.4 .deb for powerpc for example. I'm not sure how this is germane to the discussion. We've already established that there are no packages of recent Java implementations that we *can* distribute in non-free, so it doesn't affect the question of keeping non-free. Well, it establish that third party debian packages are in general of lower quality than debian debian packages, even those which are in non-free. No, it sought to establish that certain repositories were of lower quality. It hasn't even done that; as I have had to use Java from third-party repositories at work for some time and have not noticed it being any lower quality that non-free packages in Debian. The lack of 1.4 for PowerPC is not really germane; Debian doesn't have it for PowerPC either and Debian doesn't keep non-i386 archs in sync either. -- John
Re: Another Non-Free Proposal
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:07:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I might be wrong, of course, but that no one seems to be willing to setup a working non-free archive just for the hell of it seems to indicate X isn't trivially small. It looks like some things need clarifying (eg Origin/Bugs) to make that effort much more than a folly if this vote doesn't succeed. I can't blame people for not wanting to build follies. [ I missed Anthony's message; this reply is to what he wrote rather than MJ's text ] I don't expect anyone to want to set up a non-free archive until a decision is reached to remove non-free. Doing so would go a long way to proving it is possible, and thus towards defeating their own preference. I don't think you can read anything at all into that. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Statistics on non-free usage
Hello, I thought it interesting to find out just how much non-free is used. I wrote up a quick Python script that analyzes the latest popularity-contest results. Any cavets that apply to popcon results will, of course, apply this this analysis. Below you will see some selected output from the analyzer. It includes a few packages in main for comparison, then all packages in non-free. The numbers reported are in percents, not absolute users. This, I think, makes it easier to see what is going on. Also, the output is sorted by vote. The fields are (per apenwarr's definition): * Vote: Number of people that use the package regularly. * Old: Number of people with it installed but not used regularly * Recent: Upgraded too recently for stats to be valid * Unknown: No files in the package were used in stats collection From the data, we can see that: * The 5 most popular packages in non-free are acroread (18% regular use), unrar (14%), j2re1.4 (11%), and rar (10%). * In main, gs has 42%, xpdf-reader 26%, gv 20%. tar was at 87% and unzip at 49%. * kaffe was at 4%, gcj and gij at 2%, and jikes at 4%. (These are not listed below because the fell beneath the top non-free package and it was easier to omit all main packages after that point.) * Almost half of the packages in non-free installed on people's systems are never (or rarely) used. Here is the output: Package NameSection Vote Old Rcnt Unkn Totl base-files base 95120 99 bashbase 95210 99 gzipbase 95300 99 dpkgbase 95030 99 libc6 base 93050 99 tar base 87 1110 99 apt base 787 130 99 makedevel 60 18 180 97 apache web 52830 65 unzip utils 49 3130 84 libncursesw5libs 436 160 67 gs text 42 15 150 73 mozilla-browser web 41 1450 61 lynxweb 33 2730 65 gsfonts text 31 36 106 85 emacs21 editors 29410 35 xpdf-reader text 26 1570 48 spamassassinmail 254 100 40 openoffice.org editors 25790 42 netpbm graphics 22 33 160 72 gv text 20 13 230 58 acroreadnon-free/text 18900 28 unrar non-free/utils14 11 120 39 j2re1.4 non-free/libs 11510 18 rar non-free/utils10 1710 28 lha non-free/utils 8 1720 27 mpg123 non-free/sound 6 1610 24 j2sdk1.4non-free/devel 5710 14 j2re1.3 non-free/libs 5400 10 graphviznon-free/graphics4 1000 16 gs-aladdin non-free/text 41107 netpbm-nonfree non-free/graphics4 1600 21 latex2html non-free/tex 49 140 29 zoo non-free/utils 4900 14 distributed-net non-free/misc 30004 j2sdk1.3non-free/devel 34007 xanim non-free/graphics3 1300 16 xsnow non-free/x11 24007 xearth non-free/games 2700 10 jdk1.1 non-free/devel 25008 ncompress non-free/utils 25109 navigator-smotif-477non-free/web 13005 mpg123-esd non-free/sound 13005 netperf non-free/net 10002 xmame non-free/games 14006 mpg123-oss-3dnow
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 11:31:13PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Hey, if a DFSG free equivalent of tome is available, I'll migrate. (Branden: saying that nethack exists, and is a replacement for tome is like saying that gopher was an adequate alternative for http). Ahh, you should know better than to spit upon Gopher :-) Gopher software distribution for UNIX Copyright (C) 1991-2000 University of Minnesota Copyright (C) 2000-2002 John Goerzen and the gopher developers Seriously, you will likely find people that make a serious argument that Gopher was, and even is, an adequate alternative for HTTP (for at least some purposes). And, I wouldn't be devoting my time to maintaining Gopher and PyGopherd if I didn't believe that was, at least sometimes, the case. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 02:21:32PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: But, as you've diligently endeavored to make clear with your replies to my messages, my opinions are likely shared by no one else. I, for one, share them, and wish I was as gifted with the keyboard to be able to express them as succintly as you have. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 07:51:36PM +0100, Michelle Konzack wrote: Is the result of the 'popularity-contest' publich ? If yes, where can I get it ? In general I need only 'main', 'contrib' and 'non-US' Yes, the full raw data is available http://people.debian.org/~apenwarr//popcon/ -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Statistics on non-free usage
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:00:12PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
From the data, we can see that:
* The 5 most popular packages in non-free are acroread (18% regular
use), unrar (14%), j2re1.4 (11%), and rar (10%).
acroread is no longer distributable (or distributed), so should probably
be excluded from any analysis.
Also, are any of the java packages actually distributed by Debian? I
thought there were legal issues that prevented even non-free
distribution (though j2re/sdk packages are available elsewhere).
Excellent points. No, acroread is not in non-free. j2re1.4 also is
not, nor is j2dsk1.4 or, in fact, any Java newer than 1.1. I dare say
that Java 1.1 in non-free is about the same usefulness as Kaffe for
today's programs.
So, we have a situation where the #1 and #3 packages installed from
non-free on people's systems are not actually present in Debian's
non-free (any more). Also, no version of Java later than 1.1 is
present.
* In main, gs has 42%, xpdf-reader 26%, gv 20%. tar was at 87% and
unzip at 49%.
Of course, tar and unzip are no substitute for unrar.
It, of course, depends on what you're doing, but yes, I realize that. I
just tried to show a smattering of similar programs so people can
compare.
I was actually surprised at the popularity of {un}rar. I rarely see RAR
files used anywhere.
Interesting statistics. Thanks for doing this, John.
Glad to do it.
-- John
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Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 08:15:59PM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 10:59:10PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 09:17:17PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Providing a distribution platform for non-free software seems to greatly moderate the incentive the non-free authors would have to relicense their software under the GPL; it seems that the areas that we have been successful already are testament to what we have the potential to do were we to carry an even larger carrot and stick. Please provide examples. We're still missing those examples, please John. Those examples are the things that have already happened, such as Qt. You asked Craig Sanders to prove that our placing KDE in non-free helped to have its license changed. Please provide proof that that change would've occurred sooner if we hadn't packaged KDE at all, or an equivalent example. I have not made that claim; I don't know why I should have to prove it. I see a lot of people saying that placing things in non-free was the cause of getting the license changed. I'm unconvinced that this is true and that the real cause is not simply exclusion from main. I made no claims about timeframe. -- John
