On 6 May 1999, Gordon Matzigkeit wrote: > HP> 1. Decide what it is you are trying to achieve. > > Total independence from non-free software. > ... > Benefits: `pure' will make it easy for Debian users to participate in > a boycott of all non-free software. This will help channel support > towards 100% free projects, rather than ones which benefit non-free > software producers. >
OK! I have a much better idea what the proposal is now. In the past, the purpose of main was to encourage people to make their software free, and to allow people to use a 100% free system. (Also, to create a known body of software that can be distributed on CD without examining each license.) This is what the DFSG and the Social Contract are meant to address. You are proposing a new goal which Debian has not had in the past; an activist boycott of non-free software including non-free servers. To this end, you are not proposing a change in the criteria for 'main', and the whole issue is really separate from the main/nonfree distinction. That is, Debian could retain main/nonfree and the DFSG as one distinction, and add this one as well. Just as users can choose to use only main, they could choose only "pure." The alternative course of action is to retain main/nonfree as the *only* distinction. At the start of this thread, a package was kept out of main; so it was not at all clear to me that the proposal was now a different one. Let me suggest one possibly large cost that you did not mention: loss of focus. Right now Debian has a clear message that unifies developers. A kind of mission statement. It is also a message that Debian effectively advocates to the outside world. Cluttering said message is not to be taken lightly; it makes it harder to tell others and ourselves what we stand for. A possible workaround: make the pure/main distinction clearly secondary to the main/nonfree distinction. I am not sure how you would do this; a start is to choose a less loaded name, such as "strict." It might also be possible to make "pure" a Debian derivative or a special Debian mirror, maintained by a group of interested developers. Sort of an unofficial but affiliated project. Apt makes this easy to do. Or there could be other ways. In any case, to get started you will need a DFSG-equivalent, making it painfully clear exactly which packages go in pure and which don't. I think a good proposal to be voted on would include such a document. Havoc
