Flame [LWN.net]

Flame

Posted Jul 5, 2004 9:29 UTC (Mon) by calc (guest, #22286)
In reply to: Flame by angdraug
Parent article: Debian postpones social contract changes

Yes, I am aware of the voting results. If you take into consideration the
past several GR's voting results along with the discussion on the various
mailing lists it does seem Debian has been swayed to let anything go,
instead of following the intent of its SC. Woody does have non-free stuff
in it that is true, but no one actually noticed that was the case at that
time or it would have been removed then. Of course if Debian does happen
to release Sarge+1 in less than 2-3 years perhaps this black mark on its
reputation will be forgotten quickly. What Debian releases represents
Debian as a whole, and releasing known non-free items in main reflects
poorly on all its maintainers. Perhaps those who feel that Debian is not
free enough should fork and create a distribution that actually adheres
to its SC? ;)

I am a Debian Developer myself, I currently maintain around 240 packages
and am also the project manager of the AMD64 port so I am not criticizing
Debian from an bystanders perspective.

(Log in to post comments)

Flame

Posted Jul 5, 2004 10:03 UTC (Mon) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

What Debian releases represents Debian as a whole, and releasing known non-free items in main reflects poorly on all its maintainers. Perhaps those who feel that Debian is not free enough should fork and create a distribution that actually adheres to its SC? ;)

That is precisely my point: as in any democracy (or anarchy, if you're not afraid of this word;), you are free to either follow the majority, or to use direct action to oppose it. The latter would mean either creating a fork, or at least enforcing SC in the packages you maintain and submitting patches to other packages. Even though I voted for options 1 and 6, I am not discontent enough (nor have enough resources) to start a fork. If you start it, I would join it, if it wouln't require me to leave Debian. Judging by the vote results, that would be position of quite a lot of DDs.

Constructive flame.

Posted Jul 5, 2004 14:39 UTC (Mon) by mjr (subscriber, #6979) [Link]

The latter would mean either creating a fork, or at least enforcing SC in the packages you maintain and submitting patches to other packages.

Indeed; as a non-DD I'd urge any malcontents to be constructive and act according to the latter option. I doubt that DFSG compliance patches would be frowned upon.

I'm only maintaining a single package of my own software, but I know I'd fix it regardless of this vote if it had something non-DSFG-free in it.