> We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free-software > community. We will place their interests first in our > priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation > in many different kinds of computing environment. > > We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of programs > that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We > have created "contrib" and "non-free" areas in our FTP archive > for this software.
Perhaps my command of English is shaky, but I notice more than one tense in this context of yours. Note that "We will be guided" is a promise. Note that "We have created" is purely informational, and not some promise we made that needs to be weaseled out of. > You may think that the promise inherent is the social contract > is not stated strongly enough and that we can, umm, weasel out of it, > but I think that is not quite acting in good faith. I don't think that laboring under the delusion that non-free is not a disgrace helps to place the interests of users first in our priorities. You may not remember this, but long ago we used to use PGP and non-free ssh as part of our Debian work. The netscape packages were quite well cared-for. The quality of non-free was on par with our free software. I encourage you to try this experiment. Upload all future angband packages built for m68k only. Then observe the following details: how long it takes for someone to upload an i386 deb; how often the i386 deb is built incorrectly; how often the i386 deb doesn't work at all; how many user complaints and bug reports you receive about the package being out of date because the users are only checking the i386 version; how many user complaints and bug reports you receive regarding the non-functionality of the i386 deb; and so on. Then, while you're reflecting on what a good job we're doing living up to these promises you think we've made, imagine that SPI hadn't been too cowardly to accept a free hosting offer in a non-WIPO country; that we had set up a non-wipo.debian.org there; that we had moved non-free, non-us, and all manner of patent-encumbered software there; that we autobuilt all packages there for every architecture; and that users were impressed by the quality of this archive. Then wonder why no jabbering reactionaries are up in arms about non-free not living up to its potential. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
