On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 10:33:17PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: > My proposal does not throw out the social contract. It strengthens > it. I fail to see how you can call supporting and spreading non-free > software "good, valuable principles." There is no logical or ethical > basis for such a statement.
Well, there may be no logical or ethical basis that you'll accept, but that's a different matter from there being none at all. Once more: providing non-free software helps users get their work done, and helping users get their work done is a moral good and one of our purposes here. Providing non-free software that fits in with the Debian GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd systems allows users to do more with their existing system than they might otherwise, which in turn allows more people to use the free system than might otherwise, both of which are moral goods. And, lastly, Debian providing all this makes non-free software easier to maintain and easier to obtain, and, IMO, making life easier is a moral good too. Now, of course, if you accept as your ethical basis that "Debian must not distribute non-free software" or that "Debian (the project) is exclusively about free software", or something similar, well, we don't have much to discuss: you don't see any need to offer evidence as to how this will improve Debian that's unrelated to the above, and you're not willing to reject the above either. But of course, I'm just putting words in your mouth, and that's not anything at all like what you're trying to say, and I'm just an irrational and unethical goon trying to wrest the project from the ideals it was founded upon. *sigh* Whatever. Just for the record: Debian's support of non-free software is based on good, solid, worthwhile principles. IMHO, etc. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and working code.'' -- Dave Clark
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