Re: Seconded, sponsored. (was Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free)
On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 10:43:33PM -0500, Adam Rogoyski wrote:
> Please read section 5 of the social contract. Debian is a platform for
> non-free software. If it were not, parts of Debian would be violation of
> points 5 and 6 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and Debian would
> not be able to be released as free software. It is supported in the
> social contract and DFSG.
> I feel that having the man power, the capacity, and the will to support
> the current non-free and contrib sections, and then refusing work to
> continue to support these sections is not only contrary to the Social
> Contract, but contrary to the DFSG. Even though the DFSG is a work
> refering to a software's license, I feel the implications of this proposal
> violate those guidelines in the spirit of Debian as a whole.
So let me get this straight:
The Debian project is now *required* by the DFSG to *package* and
*distribute* non-free software? (As opposed to, say, allowing people
to run non-free software on Debian machines, but not provide them.)
So it is *logically inconsistent* for us to even *consider* not
distributing non-free software?
We really need to think about the message we're sending. Our users
seem to be completely confused about what Debian stands for.
(Not that I necessarily agree with the proposal. I am being pushed in
that direction, though, by watching some of the arguments against it;
I'm just waiting for someone to assert that Debian is bound by some
law to distribute non-free software.)
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