On Tue, Jun 06, 2000 at 10:17:18PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: > This is a formal call for sponsers for the below proposed Debian > General Resolution in accordance with section 4.2 of the Debian > Constitution. I more or less agree, but I would like your feedback on some points before I offer a second. > Debian General Resolution > > Resolved: > > A. That the Debian Social Contract with the Free Software Community be > amended as follows: > > 1. That mentions of non-free be stricken from Section 5, and text be > inserted, the remainder to read: "We acknowledge that some of our > users require the use of programs that don't conform to the Debian > Free Software Guidelines. Our contrib area may help with this > software." I'm not sure we need to say anything about this at all. Furthermore, I think there is some possible ambiguity caused by taking two of your statements together: "Our contrib area may help with this software." and "we will neither make the system depend upon nor distribute an item of non-free software." It's clear that many people, especially outside Debian, do not fully grasp the fact that contrib and non-free do not enjoy "official" status as Debian packages. Your proposal would eliminate the ambiguity for non-free but it would remain for contrib. I don't suggest that we scrap contrib; it's free software, after all. I suggest amending A.1) to just this: 1. That mentions of non-free be stricken from Section 5. As you said, the social contract is a contract with the free software community. Non-free software is, by definition, not part of that community. Therefore it need not be directly addressed. I do think that we can say all we need to say about non-free software via a tackling of the contrib issue. > 2. That Section 1 be amended such that the final sentence reads: "We > will support our users who develop and run non-free software on > Debian, but we will neither make the system depend upon nor distribute > an item of non-free software. Debian may continue to distribute > non-free software previously distributed via its FTP site prior to the > woody distribution." I would reword the first sentence as follows: "We will neither make the system depend upon nor distribute software that fails to meet our free software guidelines; however, we will support users of our system who develop and run non-free software." This may seem like a subtle distinction, but I think it correctly arranges the emphasis. The fact that we don't turn up our noses at users or VAR's who put non-free software on top of a Debian system is a clarification of our policy that we exclude non-free software from our own project, not the other way around. Our Social Contract should make it clear that we have no particular opinion of non-free software generally; it simply is not our mission to support it. It is the obligation of the authors/licensors of non-free software to support it. We support free software because it is one way that we contribute back to, and support the continued viability of, the free software community. Furthermore, I strongly suggest you eliminate any temporal references to particular distributions or timelines. The statement "Debian may continue to distribute non-free software previously distributed via its FTP site prior to the woody distribution." is best made a separate part of this resolution and not codified into the Social Contract; after woody is released, this language would simply be an artifact without force. > B. That the non-free section be removed from woody on all Debian > archives, and that all packages so placed there in accordance with the > definition in Policy section 2.1.4 be removed from the Distribution. > The introduction into Debian of any package meeting the non-free > definition in Policy section 2.1.4, or failing the Debian Free > Software Guidelines, shall be permanently banned. s/permanently banned/forbidden/ "Permanently banned", I think, could be construed to mean that a given piece of software could be kept out of Debian even after its license changed from a non-DFSG-compliant status to a DFSG-free one. Most Debian developers would not make this mistake of interpretation, but our social contract is written not just for our own consumption, but quite deliberately as a communication to rest of the free software community. (That is its raison d' être.) > C. That the maintainer of the Debian Policy Manual, or an appointee of > the Debian Project Leader, be directed to update that manual > respective of the changes to the Project and general Project policy > detailed in sections A and B above. > > D. That the maintainers of the Debian Archive and website, or an > appointee of the Debian Project Leader, be directed to implement the > changes to the Debian Archive and website to reflect the changes to > Debian enacted by the foregoing clauses in this Resolution. I have no problem with these points. As I said, the administative detail of when the "cutover" takes place is an administrative issue that I think should be removed from A.2) and made a separate clause or part of C). > 'Nuff said. Really, I don't think you can make a potentially controversial GR like this and then just throw a sheet over it with, "'Nuff said." :) -- G. Branden Robinson | Debian GNU/Linux | Mob rule isn't any prettier just because branden@ecn.purdue.edu | you call your mob a government. roger.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
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