On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Jules Bean wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 05, 2001 at 07:35:52AM -0500, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Mar 05, 2001 at 02:42:53AM -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote:
> > > > I do not want to see non-free more readily available,
> > > > I would in fact like for it to wither and die. That's not contrary to
> > > > the
> > > > needs of commercial interests,
> > >
> > > You surely meant "proprietary interests" here. Commercial interests and
> > > free
> > > software have never conflicted in a fundamental way. It slips through a
> > > couple of other times in your mail, but I won't nag you by pointing them
> > > out.
> >
> > Just my POV:
> >
> > The reasons for the existance of non-free have nothing to do with either
> > "proprietary interests" or "commercial interests"! The reason for non-free
> > stem from the existance of programs with licenses that fail the DFSG.
> > (note, this is _not_ equivelant to either "proprietary" or "commerial")
> > Nothing more, nothing less. Many of the licenses in non-free meet two out
> > of three requirements of the DFSG (1. Provide Source, 2. Allow
> > Modification, 3. Allow Distribution of Modified Binaries), but even the
> > worst license (in MHO that would be Pine) allows distribution of source,
> > or it couldn't even go into non-free.
>
> This is not true.
>
> There is software in non-free for which no source is available.
If you are talking about things other than "installers", I'll have to take
your word for that. I haven't done an analysis of non-free in quite a
while, so there may very well be some binary only packages. I had assumed
that we resolved such issues with installer programs, and that source is
certainly available.
Small quibble on my part, but I can accept that what you say is correct.
I'm not sure it changes the argument much though. My assertion that none
of the packages in non-free are there because of proprietary or commercial
interests, and has nothing to do with supporting such notions, is still a
valid one. non-free's just a place where we distribute non-DFSG software
that _can_ be distributed on the ftp sites. non-DFSG does not imply
proprietary, although proprietary obviously implies non-DFSG.
Luck,
Dwarf
--
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