"Then the question becomes: can a project "teach about freedom"(...)"
Well I start here we start to disagree already.
You're exaggerating the educational importance of some details of a project
most users hardly know anything about.
I don't think a project has necessarily to teach anything to anyone, neither
positive nor negative. As long as the software people use is ethical.
The fact that most Debian users think it's about being gratis is not debians
fault. They mention free software on their page and even refer to the gnu
project, which shows clearly their relation to free software.
The users who don't value freedom don't do it because they saw that some
debian developer maintened a non-free project.
And still: I'm not claiming that their are no problems with debian.
I claim that those problems are extremely tiny compared to the problems that
arise because we refuse to cooperate with debian and become one strong force.
Gnu doesn't have the power by itself. We have to provide *one whole and
popular* operating system with a huge developer base under the flag of free
software. This goal can be achieved by the cooperation with debian.
Gnu is no whole operating system by now. The fsf and gnu endorsed versions of
it are not popular and the developer base is tiny.
There will never be a success if we have to explain to complicated and weak
positions of gnu.
