I have been reading a bit of the discussion regarding the inclusion of non-free in Debian. Although I'm not a Debian developer or maintainer, it's hard for me be quiet. I very much appreciate open source software both for the ethic of open source and for the quality that often emerges from open source efforts. I developed one of the leading 'open source' alternatives to the CP/M kernel (NovaDOS) in the early 80s, freely available and distributed as source via the network of ZCPR3 bulletin boards before the Internet was available to most of us and before anyone, including me, had heard of open source as a concept. I hope, therefore, that what I say carries at least a bit of weight. As far as Debian is concerned, I'm strictly a pragmatic consumer. Although I appreciate many of the advantages of Linux and Debian by virtue of their being open source projects, I keep coming back to Debian for one reason and one reason only, and that is its quality. I've used and worked with other distributions, many of which get ragged around the edges when pushed, but the commitment to quality and the integration of the incredible bredth of packages available for Debian stands for me out as clearly superior to that of other Linux distributions. It is strictly a no-nevermind to me whether the non-free portion of the distribution is available from official Debian Project sources or available elsewhere. I depend on MySQL, as well as on Netscape, and if I didn't get them as .deb packages with the distribution, I'd have to get them somewhere else, either as .deb packages (as with KDE) or as compiled binaries, or as old-fashioned Unix sources. An extra line in my sources.list should be sufficient. What does matter to me, however, is that the quality of these packages and that of the core Debian distribution is maintained, and if the quality of the distribution, including both free and non-free, falls below that of other distributions, I'm history as far as Debian is concerned. At that point the Debian development community will have failed to live up to the potential inherent in the open source development paridigm and will have left the path of wisdom. Please remember that many of us depend on the excellent quality and diversity of Debian. We're not developers, nor are we open source theorists - we're just people trying to do the best jobs we can using the best tools available. We like the open source software we use because it's damned good and the people who write it treat us like adults and colleagues rather than children or mere consumers. I don't give a rat's butt in a hurricane whether non-free is part of the official Debian distribution as long as I can still get the quality tools I need to do the work that puts food on my table and the play that keeps me growing. I'm not afraid of the legal subtleties in non-free licenses, and if I have to, I'll work around them or switch to equivalent packages. No one needs to protect me from non-free software. Surely, with the extent of talent available in the Debian development community a clever and creative solution can be found to resolve the whole business of non-free vs. free. packages which will satisfy everyone and keep the level of quality up - and let the Debian Project get on with the real work at hand. Inclusive is better than exclusive and has more influence. Honey draws more flies than vinegar. A lot of us out here have our fingres crossed. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
