Am Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 02:15:02PM -0700 schrieb Sam Hartman: > > I think the further away from free software something is, the higher the > bar we should apply for getting involved in the politics. > > I think both in the X and Google cases, Debian should not get involved > in the politics.
Right. And I consider it a difference between where we post news about the project and who is using our operating system. Per DFSG it is OK if X would use Debian - finally its free for everybody. > Secondly, I think we should allow people in Debian doing the work to > have significant flexibility in how (and whether) that work gets done. > If what the publicity team and those maintaining Debian's X presence > were saying was that *they* felt uncomfortable being in a place where > they were not respected, then I fully support them. Similarly, if they > were saying that they did not want to do work in a place where users > were not respected, then as the people previously doing that work, I > support them in withdrawing. ACK > How do I feel about the statement we made? > honestly, I am not thrilled. > If it really was a political decision (our people felt comfortable in > the X environment, but wanted to make a statement by leaving), I really > wish we had done something different. > If it was a non-political decision (our people felt uncomfortable > continuing the work), and we made a political statement anyway … well, > there are many worse things in the world. I understand that the latter is the case. There are valid non-political reasons, but there is certainly plenty of room for interpreting the decision in a political way. > So how would I apply this reasoning to Google? > If the DebConf team is uncomfortable in their interactions with > google---say because they are not treated respectfully, I absolutely > support them in withdrawing from the relationship. (I believe that to > be counter-factual; as far as I know Google has always treated us with > respect.) > If the Salsa team and CI team want to work on more free cloud options, I > absolutely support that, even if that involves spending some Debian > money. > > If we developed a free option for our CI infrastructure and wanted to > make a press release about it, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we > focused on free software issues than broader issues with Google's > decisions. > > I think the interesting question comes up if say Debconf wanted to put > together a policy for what sort of sponsors were acceptable. > Non-profits sometimes have to do that. My university, MIT, was in the > news for some of their infamous donors in ways they really did not > enjoy, and as a result, they have chosen to be much more clear about who > they take money from. > In my mind I'd rather the Debconf group put that together rather than > the project as a whole. > If they wanted to start including issues like environmental impact and > issues like you bring up, I guess I would hold my nose and support the > people doing the work making the decisions. > I wouldn't have a lot of sympathy if there were a budget shortfall if > the policy was too strict. I agree with what you said above. IMHO, one aspect is missing here. As mentioned earlier, the DFSG does not allow us to prevent anyone from using Debian. If we were to reject sponsorship from our users, I fail to see how this would have any impact on making the world a better place. It’s not as if any of our users are paying us with the intent to, say, increase environmental impact or anything similar. As far as I understand, there are no restrictions on the donations we receive. The decision about how we inform our users about our work is fundamentally different from the decision about who we accept donations from to support that work—as long as the donations do not influence our free work. Kind regards Andreas. -- https://fam-tille.de
