Re: resounding nothingness

[Anthony Towns]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 09:39:36PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> I'm not sure how to proceed on this non-free issue.
> If no one thinks my most recent proposal is worth sponsoring, nor even
> criticising, 

Well, I've already said in the past that I think it'd be better to deal
with making the text clearer separately from working out what we want to
do with non-free. Particularly given you're just changing "Debian(n)" to
"Debian Main", I think it's clear that we can reasonably cope with the
Social Contract as it is while keeping non-free, so there's no urgency
about this change.

Concurrent with this mail, I've proposed what I think we should do,
which I hope is pretty simple and straightforward.

> I guess I should just drop it?  

If we decide to keep non-free, I think we should come back to the issue.

FWIW, I can't say I really like the word "main". It's about as hopeless as
"contrib" is in making it obvious what it's meant to mean.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

 Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
   http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Proposal: Keep non-free

[Anthony Towns]

I propose that the Debian project resolve that:

==
Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
==

It is my belief that continuing to provide such support does not require
any changes to our social contract, and that consequently the project may
resolve the above by simple majority.

It is my belief that this proposal is best considered as an amendment to
Andrew Suffield's proposal so that the two alternatives may be considered
concurrently on a single ballot, under sections A.1(D&A).3 and A.3.1.

I would obviously appreciate seconds for the above resolution.

Rationale follows.

I believe this is a better option to be voting on now than Raul's
proposals as it makes the forthcoming ballot a simple decision on whether
to keep non-free or not; without either requiring any later decisions to
be made whatever the outcome here, nor tying the outcome on that question
with other independent changes that people may or may not support.

I believe keeping non-free continues to be useful in a number of ways.

First, it allows us to provide useful packages that we could not otherwise
provide. In the future, we can probably expect non-free to be the only
way we can distribute such things as the GNU Manuals and Centrino wireless
drivers. In the past it's allowed us to distribute such things as Qmail,
Qt, netscape, ncftp and Java.

Second, it allows us to ensure that our operating system works well
with popular pieces of non-free software, and vice-versa; software
that's in non-free can be maintained with all the usual tools we have
for the main Debian distribution: dependency analysis, autobuilders,
even security support. Without that software in the Debian archive, it
becomes significantly more difficult for developers of free software to
reproduce reports of bugs in their packages that show up when used with
particular non-free applications.

Third, it allows us to establish productive relationships with upstream
authors of non-free software, which gives the free software community
an effective channel for communicating their needs and desires. In some
cases this results in the package being relicensed under a free license,
in others it gives us the opportunity to get increased compatability
across apps, in others it simply makes it clear that the appropriate
arguments have been presented to upstream but won't be accepted.

While none of those arguments can be proven in any sense, they all have
supporting evidence -- the fact that people bother to maintain it and
install it is evidence that some non-free software continues to be useful,
there are numerous examples of packages in non-free being relicensed to
be free (and far more examples of that than the converse, despite there
being far more packages in main), numerous non-free packages are better
integrated into Debian by us than they are by upstream, and so forth.

By contrast there is not, to the best of my knowledge, any evidence at all
to support the claims that supporting non-free costs as anything notable.
The costs in resources of non-free are trivial: the amount of diskspace
and bandwidth it uses up in its entirety are less than the number of
uploads we get to main most days. The costs in manpower are also fairly
small: all the ongoing support is a freebie from supporting software in
main (and contrib); and the setup support is (by my estimation) trivial,
and having already been spent isn't able to be recovered. Similarly, there
have been claims that without non-free, we'll have a bigger incentive to
encourage people to relicense their software freely: that if they don't,
we won't distribute it, but those claims haven't been supported by any
evidence at all, anecdotal or otherwise.

On the other hand there are reasonably measurable potential costs to
removing non-free. It's been speculated that if Debian's infrastructure
really is valuable for non-free software, then if we stop providing it,
someone else will set it up and maintain it. This is, IMO, a significant
cost: maintaining the Debian infrastructure isn't trivial, even if you
exclude all the development: ensuring the servers you run are secure,
making sure the appropriate people have upload access, avoiding spam, and
making sure the system keeps working all take time, and the only people
that seem likely to invest that time seem to be people who would have
otherwise invested it in doing things beneficial to Debian -- either
doing a better job maintaining non-free software for Debian users, or
more

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Graham Wilson]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

I second this.

-- 
gram


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Description: Digital signature

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Stephen Stafford]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Anthony towns wrote:
>
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
>
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==
>
> It is my belief that continuing to provide such support does not require
> any changes to our social contract, and that consequently the project may
> resolve the above by simple majority.
>
> It is my belief that this proposal is best considered as an amendment to
> Andrew Suffield's proposal so that the two alternatives may be considered
> concurrently on a single ballot, under sections A.1(D&A).3 and A.3.1.
>
> I would obviously appreciate seconds for the above resolution.

I firmly believe that keeping non-free and contrib until such time as ALL of
the needs of our users can be met from main is a good thing.

I second this proposal.

(hope the signing here works, I've written this in a text editor, signed it
with gpg, then pasted the result to the webmail I use for reading mail.  If
the sig comes out wrong, please let me know and I'll come up with a better
way to sign it)

Cheers,
Stephen
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/htyaUyvHuugE3cXgeBMY44=
=FIHb
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


-- 
Stephen Stafford
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Martin Buck]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

Seconded.

Martin


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Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract

[Jochen Voss]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 03:12:32PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> Paragraphs 1 to 4 of the social contract are replaced with the
> following text:
> 
> 1. 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.
> 
> 2. We will give back to the Free Software community
> 
> When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license
> them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be widely
> distributed and used.  We will communicate things such as bug fixes,
> improvements and user requests to the "upstream" authors of works
> included in our system.
> 
> 3. We will not hide problems
> 
> We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at
> all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible
> to others.
> 
> 4. Our priorities are our users and Free Software
> 
> We will be guided by the needs of our users and the Free Software
> community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We
> will support the needs of our users for operation in many different
> kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works
> that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a
> fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to
> create distributions containing both the Debian system and other
> works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will
> provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal
> restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system.
> 
> 
> If paragraph 5 is still present, it is replaced with the following
> text:
> 
> 5. Works that do not meet our Free Software standards
> 
> We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that do
> not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created
> "contrib" and "non-free" areas in our archive for these works. The
> packages in these areas are not part of the Debian system, although
> they have been configured for use with Debian. We encourage CD
> manufacturers to read the licenses of the packages in these areas and
> determine if they can distribute the packages on their CDs. Thus,
> although non-free works are not a part of Debian, we support their use
> and provide infrastructure for non-free packages (such as our bug
> tracking system and mailing lists).

I second this proposal,

Jochen
-- 
http://seehuhn.de/


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

attempt to list current proposals

[Jochen Voss]

Hello,

I am still unhappy because it is so hard to find out,
how many and which proposals are competing in the planned GR.
I found the following ones in the list archives:

  1) Andrew Suffield
 submitted 20 Jan 2004 and modified 22 Jan 2004

Seconds:
  Chad Walstrom
  Remi Vanicat
  Steve Langasek
  Branden Robinson
  Jochen Voss

  2) Raul Miller
 submitted 9 Feb 2004

No seconds

Maybe there are older version with seconds?

  3) Anthony Towns
 submitted 22 Feb 2004

Seconds:
  Graham Wilson
  Stephen Staffor
  Martin Buck

Number 1 seems to have five seconds now.  Number 3 is very new and I
guess it will get more seconds.

My questions:
Are there any more current proposals around?
What is the current state of number 2 above?

Jochen
-- 
http://seehuhn.de/


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Greg Norris]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

I second this proposal.




signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

On Saturday 21 February 2004 07:48, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
>
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==
>

I second this.

Many of us (myself included) don't like non-free but pragmatism is important 
here.  If users have to fight to get their new computer working they will go 
somewhere else.  The recent trend of video card and other hardware vendors 
indicates that this problem will not be going away.

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sam Johnston]

Anthony Towns wrote:


I propose that the Debian project resolve that:

==
Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
==
 



I second this. I believe it is important for business users (like 
myself) to have access to this software, and that it allows us to apply 
pressure to upstream authors to choose friendlier licenses.


Regards,

Sam

--
Sam Johnston, Director
Australian Online Solutions
http://www.aos.net.au/

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Joerg Jaspert]

Anthony Towns  writes:

> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

Seconded.

Whoever doesn't like non-free should keep it out of his sources.list and
don't maintain packages there. Sometimes it is simple...

-- 
bye Joerg
 anyone from the MIA team around? tbm?
 sounds nice. how long do you have to be MIA to get into that team? :)
 you need to have a pgp key, I suppose. and no gpg one, and only a bo box
 yes, but it must be expired


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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Saturday 21 February 2004 15:50, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
> On Saturday 21 February 2004 07:48, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> >
> > ==
> > Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> > programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> > reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> > our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> > use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> > lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> > ==
>
> I second this.
>
> Many of us (myself included) don't like non-free but pragmatism is
> important here.  If users have to fight to get their new computer working
> they will go somewhere else.  The recent trend of video card and other
> hardware vendors indicates that this problem will not be going away.
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Re: resounding nothingness

[Anthony Towns]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 09:39:36PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> I'm not sure how to proceed on this non-free issue.
> If no one thinks my most recent proposal is worth sponsoring, nor even
> criticising, 

Well, I've already said in the past that I think it'd be better to deal
with making the text clearer separately from working out what we want to
do with non-free. Particularly given you're just changing "Debian(n)" to
"Debian Main", I think it's clear that we can reasonably cope with the
Social Contract as it is while keeping non-free, so there's no urgency
about this change.

Concurrent with this mail, I've proposed what I think we should do,
which I hope is pretty simple and straightforward.

> I guess I should just drop it?  

If we decide to keep non-free, I think we should come back to the issue.

FWIW, I can't say I really like the word "main". It's about as hopeless as
"contrib" is in making it obvious what it's meant to mean.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

 Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
   http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Proposal: Keep non-free

[Anthony Towns]

I propose that the Debian project resolve that:

==
Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
==

It is my belief that continuing to provide such support does not require
any changes to our social contract, and that consequently the project may
resolve the above by simple majority.

It is my belief that this proposal is best considered as an amendment to
Andrew Suffield's proposal so that the two alternatives may be considered
concurrently on a single ballot, under sections A.1(D&A).3 and A.3.1.

I would obviously appreciate seconds for the above resolution.

Rationale follows.

I believe this is a better option to be voting on now than Raul's
proposals as it makes the forthcoming ballot a simple decision on whether
to keep non-free or not; without either requiring any later decisions to
be made whatever the outcome here, nor tying the outcome on that question
with other independent changes that people may or may not support.

I believe keeping non-free continues to be useful in a number of ways.

First, it allows us to provide useful packages that we could not otherwise
provide. In the future, we can probably expect non-free to be the only
way we can distribute such things as the GNU Manuals and Centrino wireless
drivers. In the past it's allowed us to distribute such things as Qmail,
Qt, netscape, ncftp and Java.

Second, it allows us to ensure that our operating system works well
with popular pieces of non-free software, and vice-versa; software
that's in non-free can be maintained with all the usual tools we have
for the main Debian distribution: dependency analysis, autobuilders,
even security support. Without that software in the Debian archive, it
becomes significantly more difficult for developers of free software to
reproduce reports of bugs in their packages that show up when used with
particular non-free applications.

Third, it allows us to establish productive relationships with upstream
authors of non-free software, which gives the free software community
an effective channel for communicating their needs and desires. In some
cases this results in the package being relicensed under a free license,
in others it gives us the opportunity to get increased compatability
across apps, in others it simply makes it clear that the appropriate
arguments have been presented to upstream but won't be accepted.

While none of those arguments can be proven in any sense, they all have
supporting evidence -- the fact that people bother to maintain it and
install it is evidence that some non-free software continues to be useful,
there are numerous examples of packages in non-free being relicensed to
be free (and far more examples of that than the converse, despite there
being far more packages in main), numerous non-free packages are better
integrated into Debian by us than they are by upstream, and so forth.

By contrast there is not, to the best of my knowledge, any evidence at all
to support the claims that supporting non-free costs as anything notable.
The costs in resources of non-free are trivial: the amount of diskspace
and bandwidth it uses up in its entirety are less than the number of
uploads we get to main most days. The costs in manpower are also fairly
small: all the ongoing support is a freebie from supporting software in
main (and contrib); and the setup support is (by my estimation) trivial,
and having already been spent isn't able to be recovered. Similarly, there
have been claims that without non-free, we'll have a bigger incentive to
encourage people to relicense their software freely: that if they don't,
we won't distribute it, but those claims haven't been supported by any
evidence at all, anecdotal or otherwise.

On the other hand there are reasonably measurable potential costs to
removing non-free. It's been speculated that if Debian's infrastructure
really is valuable for non-free software, then if we stop providing it,
someone else will set it up and maintain it. This is, IMO, a significant
cost: maintaining the Debian infrastructure isn't trivial, even if you
exclude all the development: ensuring the servers you run are secure,
making sure the appropriate people have upload access, avoiding spam, and
making sure the system keeps working all take time, and the only people
that seem likely to invest that time seem to be people who would have
otherwise invested it in doing things beneficial to Debian -- either
doing a better job maintaining non-free software for Debian users, or
more

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Graham Wilson]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

I second this.

-- 
gram


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Stephen Stafford]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Anthony towns wrote:
>
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
>
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==
>
> It is my belief that continuing to provide such support does not require
> any changes to our social contract, and that consequently the project may
> resolve the above by simple majority.
>
> It is my belief that this proposal is best considered as an amendment to
> Andrew Suffield's proposal so that the two alternatives may be considered
> concurrently on a single ballot, under sections A.1(D&A).3 and A.3.1.
>
> I would obviously appreciate seconds for the above resolution.

I firmly believe that keeping non-free and contrib until such time as ALL of
the needs of our users can be met from main is a good thing.

I second this proposal.

(hope the signing here works, I've written this in a text editor, signed it
with gpg, then pasted the result to the webmail I use for reading mail.  If
the sig comes out wrong, please let me know and I'll come up with a better
way to sign it)

Cheers,
Stephen
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/htyaUyvHuugE3cXgeBMY44=
=FIHb
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-- 
Stephen Stafford
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Martin Buck]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

Seconded.

Martin


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Description: PGP signature

Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract

[Jochen Voss]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 03:12:32PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> Paragraphs 1 to 4 of the social contract are replaced with the
> following text:
> 
> 1. 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.
> 
> 2. We will give back to the Free Software community
> 
> When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license
> them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> We will make the best system we can, so that free works will be widely
> distributed and used.  We will communicate things such as bug fixes,
> improvements and user requests to the "upstream" authors of works
> included in our system.
> 
> 3. We will not hide problems
> 
> We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at
> all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible
> to others.
> 
> 4. Our priorities are our users and Free Software
> 
> We will be guided by the needs of our users and the Free Software
> community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We
> will support the needs of our users for operation in many different
> kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works
> that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a
> fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to
> create distributions containing both the Debian system and other
> works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will
> provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal
> restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system.
> 
> 
> If paragraph 5 is still present, it is replaced with the following
> text:
> 
> 5. Works that do not meet our Free Software standards
> 
> We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that do
> not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created
> "contrib" and "non-free" areas in our archive for these works. The
> packages in these areas are not part of the Debian system, although
> they have been configured for use with Debian. We encourage CD
> manufacturers to read the licenses of the packages in these areas and
> determine if they can distribute the packages on their CDs. Thus,
> although non-free works are not a part of Debian, we support their use
> and provide infrastructure for non-free packages (such as our bug
> tracking system and mailing lists).

I second this proposal,

Jochen
-- 
http://seehuhn.de/


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

attempt to list current proposals

[Jochen Voss]

Hello,

I am still unhappy because it is so hard to find out,
how many and which proposals are competing in the planned GR.
I found the following ones in the list archives:

  1) Andrew Suffield
 submitted 20 Jan 2004 and modified 22 Jan 2004

Seconds:
  Chad Walstrom
  Remi Vanicat
  Steve Langasek
  Branden Robinson
  Jochen Voss

  2) Raul Miller
 submitted 9 Feb 2004

No seconds

Maybe there are older version with seconds?

  3) Anthony Towns
 submitted 22 Feb 2004

Seconds:
  Graham Wilson
  Stephen Staffor
  Martin Buck

Number 1 seems to have five seconds now.  Number 3 is very new and I
guess it will get more seconds.

My questions:
Are there any more current proposals around?
What is the current state of number 2 above?

Jochen
-- 
http://seehuhn.de/


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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Greg Norris]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:48:48AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> 
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

I second this proposal.




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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

On Saturday 21 February 2004 07:48, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
>
> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==
>

I second this.

Many of us (myself included) don't like non-free but pragmatism is important 
here.  If users have to fight to get their new computer working they will go 
somewhere else.  The recent trend of video card and other hardware vendors 
indicates that this problem will not be going away.


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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sam Johnston]

Anthony Towns wrote:

I propose that the Debian project resolve that:

==
Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
==
 

I second this. I believe it is important for business users (like 
myself) to have access to this software, and that it allows us to apply 
pressure to upstream authors to choose friendlier licenses.

Regards,

Sam

--
Sam Johnston, Director
Australian Online Solutions
http://www.aos.net.au/
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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Joerg Jaspert]

Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> ==
> Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> ==

Seconded.

Whoever doesn't like non-free should keep it out of his sources.list and
don't maintain packages there. Sometimes it is simple...

-- 
bye Joerg
 anyone from the MIA team around? tbm?
 sounds nice. how long do you have to be MIA to get into that team? :)
 you need to have a pgp key, I suppose. and no gpg one, and only a bo box
 yes, but it must be expired


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Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Saturday 21 February 2004 15:50, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
> On Saturday 21 February 2004 07:48, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > I propose that the Debian project resolve that:
> >
> > ==
> > Acknowledging that some of our users continue to require the use of
> > programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, we
> > reaffirm our commitment to providing the contrib and non-free areas in
> > our archive for packaged versions of such software, and to providing the
> > use of our infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
> > lists) to help with the maintenance of non-free software packages.
> > ==
>
> I second this.
>
> Many of us (myself included) don't like non-free but pragmatism is
> important here.  If users have to fight to get their new computer working
> they will go somewhere else.  The recent trend of video card and other
> hardware vendors indicates that this problem will not be going away.
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