On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 09:18:25AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: > > > One thing that all of the advocates for dumping non-free have in common is > > > a complete disregard for the actual contents of non-free. they like to > > > pretend that it's all proprietary software, that it doesn't even come > > > close > > > to free, that source-code isn't available. > > > > As a long-time advocate for dumping non-free software, and someone that has > > maintained a package in non-free, I can readily disprove that by stating > > that > > your statement does not describe my beliefs. > > then explain why software that is almost-free (e.g. software that is free for > use or modification but is prohibited from commercial sale) should not be > distributed at all by debian. explain why free-but-patent-restricted software > should not be distributed at all by debian. explain why software that is free > for personal or educational use should not be distributed at all by debian. > explain why software that is free for all but use by government agencies or > spammers or whoever should not be distributed at all by debian.
The simple answer is: the reason that we should not distribute them is the same as the reason that they are not DFSG-free. You can, I'm sure, search voluminous archives for illuminating discussions upon all those points with relation to the DFSG. The fact that some software has source and others don't; or that some can be used by only certain people; is an irrelevant distinction to me. There are several reasons that we should not distribute software that is not DFSG-free. Some include: Confusion. Many people incorrectly assume that software in non-free is a part of the Debian Distribution. This is not the case, even though we frequently refer to Debian as "distributing" non-free software. We wind up with arguments from even seasoned Debian developers complaining that we are removing some bit of functionality from our operating system distribution, when in fact that is not the case, since the functionality was never there. Quality. Contrib and non-free long been the bastard son of the Debian quality process. Autobuilders do not build non-free, and thus packages are often significantly out of date. Worse, our BTS closes bug reports when they're fixed on one arch. The state-of-the-art packages on some architectures may have bugs fixed so long ago that they are not even listed on the BTS anymore. We are not able to maintain non-free up to our (already paltry) standards. We do not support it with security updates. We may be providing people with software with known security holes, and doing nothing about it. This is not worthy of Debian. This is not something Debian should associate itself with. And, what's more, this is something that could be improved more *outside* Debian than within it. If we cannot distribute and support software in a quality fashion, we should not do so at all. Ethics. We are here because we value Free Software and believe that it is valuable to us and the world. Non-free software is everything that we are not. Non-free means lack of freedom to use software like you want. Non-free means lack of the ability to alter it like you want. It means lack of ability to give altered copies to people you want to. It may even mean lack of the ability to fix grave bugs in the software. There is nothing more antithetical to the very foundation of Debian than this. We have proven to the world that a free operating system can compete with the best proprietary operating systems. Now let us prove to the world that this operating system can stand up on its own, without the crutch of non-free. *That* should be a powerful motivator to all those people that need one to relicense their software. > there is a huge difference between almost-free software and proprietary > software. If you are a business and almost-free means home or educational use only, that difference is practically non-existant. > there are some items in non-free that i personally think should not be there, Then you are confusing the "what should be allowed in main" argument with the "whether we should distribute things that are not allowed in main" argument. They are two distinct questions, and it seems to me that you are attempting to influence the second because your opinions on the first were not shared by a majority of Debian developers. -- John
