Anthony Towns has been arguing that the non-free archive really *is* part of Debian, that while it isn't part of the "Debian Distribution", it is obviously a part of the system as a whole.
This disregards the current text of the Social Contract section 5, which is very clear that the non-free archives are "not part of the Debian system" and that "non-free software isn't a part of Debian". Anthony and Sven and others have recently found it very hard to preserve this illusion, because they themselves speak of "removing non-free from Debian", which strongly suggests that they have essentially decided to ignore what the Social Contract section 5 says about this. So which is it? Are you going to start speaking more precisely, and stop acting as if it's pedantic to insist that non-free is not now part of Debian? If the "get rid of non-free" resolution fails, then it will still remain true that non-free is not part of the Debian system, and is indeed not part of Debian. So, Sven, Anthony, Bdale, will you join me in correcting users who think that non-free is part of Debian? Will you commit to not saying any more that it is? Will you not speak as if the non-free packages ever were part of Debian? It is my conviction that Social Contract paragraph 5 represents a compromise position. And that compromise has essentially all but broken down. At least the proposers of the resolution have the honesty to say it has; the opponents seem to want to say it's just fine, while they ignore the part of the compromise they don't like. I think we need to get rid of paragraph 5 entirely. It's purpose has long since been served; and those who would like it to remain are themselves not happy with the compromise. Thomas
