On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 16:59:00 +0100, Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Points 1. and 2. above are removed and replaced with:
> 1. that the following text be appended to the first clause of the
> Social Contract:
> We apologize that the current state of some of our documentation
> and kernel drivers with binary-only firmware does not live up to
> this part of our Social Contract. While Sarge will not meet this
> standard in those areas, we promise to rectify this in the
> following release.
> The first clause of the Social Contract as amended will read as
> follows:
> Debian will remain 100% free
> We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is
> "free" in the document entitled "The Debian Free Software
> Guidelines". We promise that the Debian system and all its
> components will be free according to these guidelines. We will
> support people who create or use both free and non-free works on
> Debian. We will never make the system require the use of a
> non-free component.
> We apologize that the current state of some of our documentation
> and kernel drivers does not live up to this part of our Social
> Contract. While Debian 3.1 (codenamed sarge) will not meet this
> standard in those areas, we promise to rectify this in the next
> full release.
> I largely concur with Steve's rationale above. However, having
> amended the Social Contract already in a way that many of our
> developers feel best expresses their principles yet being quite some
> distance away from being able to meet those standards, I feel that
> the most honest approach is to note in the Social Contract itself
> that we apologize for not living up to those principles just yet. We
> can then get on with releasing something that's the best we can do
> in the time we need to satisfy those of our userbase who are
> frustrated with the age of the previous release, and start removing
> or rewriting whatever's necessary after that.
> As well as being, in my opinion, more honest, amending the Social
> Contract rather than resolving to ignore it means that the Release
> Manager will no longer be in the position of either having to
> violate the Social Contract or else having to postpone a full Debian
> release for an as yet indeterminate period of time. (This also
> applies to Steve's original proposal.)
> The Social Contract as amended here does not require the removal of
> non-free documentation or kernel drivers with binary-only firmware
> from sarge or its point releases; but it restores the full force of
> version
> 1.1 with effect from sarge+1. It does not excuse any other DFSG
> violations in sarge. I feel that we already have plenty of incentive
> to release sarge in a short timeframe, and that we're well on the
> way to doing so.
The only issue I have with this is as it stand that this shall
require another 3:1 GR to clean up the social contract after we
release sarge (or sarge +1, sarge +10, whenever we decide to clean
it).
Would you consider applying a sunset clause to the amendment,
so that post sarge we revert to the current SC, without needing yet
another GR? I don't think we should change foundation documents
anymore than we absolutely have to.
manoj
--
99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and
dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on
the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101
blocks of crud on the disk! ...
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
