Debian votes to keep non-free [LWN.net]

Debian votes to keep non-free

Posted Mar 22, 2004 7:08 UTC (Mon) by amacater (subscriber, #790)
Parent article: Debian votes to keep non-free

This has come at the end of a very significant amount of discussion/flame
wars on the mailing lists. Most of the folk involved won't want to do
this again within a year :) Somewhat surprisingly, it seems that all
three of the Debian project leader candidates voted against keeping non-free
[More details at http://vote.debian.org - where you can check which people
voted for which option].

There has also been discussion about setting up a separate entity
with separate servers - nonfree.org - which may or may not go ahead now.

The non-free software provided as a service by Debian does _not_ form
part of the Debian software distribution.

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Debian votes to keep non-free

Posted Mar 22, 2004 9:32 UTC (Mon) by LintuxCx (subscriber, #14448) [Link]

Where do you see the votes from all individual developers? I thought Debian kept the votes private and just published the total results. And indeed I can't find my vote back on that page. Just a list of people who second a proposal voted about.

Debian votes to keep non-free

Posted Mar 22, 2004 10:03 UTC (Mon) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

See Manoj's email quoted above. Alternatively, go to the page, go down
the bar on the left hand side 'til you find the non-free resolution
and click on it. Part way down the page there is a dummy tally hyperlink - which, unsurprisingly, is now the real tally :)

HTH,

Andy

Debian votes to keep non-free

Posted Mar 22, 2004 10:05 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

The votes are kept secret only for the DPL elections.

See Debian constitution 4.2.3:
Votes are taken by the Project Secretary. Votes, tallies, and results are not revealed
during the voting period; after the vote the Project Secretary lists all the votes cast.
The voting period is 2 weeks, but may be varied by up to 1 week by the Project
Leader.

And Debian constitution 5.2.5:
The next three weeks are the polling period during which Developers may cast their
votes. Votes in leadership elections are kept secret, even after the election is
finished.

The votes are at <http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/gr_non_free_tally.txt>
as mentionned in the article.

Debian votes to keep non-free

Posted Mar 22, 2004 10:30 UTC (Mon) by mbanck (subscriber, #9035) [Link]

There has also been discussion about setting up a separate entity with separate servers - nonfree.org - which may or may not go ahead now.

This is undecided right now - the person who agreed to host the box and was having a good deal of the Debian archive infrastructure installed already was not amenable to keep on with the non-free.org effort should the resolution fail.

A probable outcome would be to not clone the current non-free part of Debian somewhere else but rather start a new service where current and future maintainers of non-free software could migrate/host their packages. If this proves successful, it could lead to the obsolence of non-free on debian.org in a couple of years, who knows?

I would have to check back with the people supporting non-free.org and also a new box and hosting would be needed most probably.

Michael