>>"Steve" == Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 Steve> I'd be happy to hear clarifications from the author and
 Steve> contemporaries, then; to be honest, my memory of Debian
 Steve> history isn't good enough to even know who to approach.  (The
 Steve> debian-doc package is conspicuously lacking of the relevant
 Steve> copyright information, btw. :)

        Well, if y'all can trust my aging memory, this is my impression
 of how things were.

        From what I recall of that time, there was tension between the
 pragmatists(Hi Alex) and the GPL proponents* (of which at that time, I
 was one). The argument of the pragmatists was similar to what one
 hears on lkml right now vis-a-vis BitKeeper -- it is stupid to chose
 an inferior solution over a better one merely for licensing reasons,
 mention was made of things being free enough (essentially all we have
 in non-free is was deemed free enough), and the ultimate end goal was
 to produce the best, most useful, distribution ever. Also, the
 argument went that one needed to be pragmatic about software people
 ran if one were not to be marginalized  and made irrelevant; hence we
 needed to support ``real software that people used''. The GPL people
 were for essentially removing all non free software from Debian.

        I don't think non software stuff even occurred to anyone at
 the time, so I don't think the argument that the DFSG precludes
 anything that is not software holds water (aside from the fact that
 anything on a website or on a debian cd can arguably be called
 software anyway).

        The DFSG was a compromise: we said that only free software
 shall be a part of debian (hurrays from the GPL proponents), whike
 recognizing the needs for users to run software we did not feel were
 licensed under a free license. [The next bit is my OPINION]. The core
 of the philosophy was one of choice: we preferred free software, bit
 we did not constrain or coerce people to it; we advocated free
 software, but still provided help and support for users not yet
 running only free software; the premise was that people would realize
 on their own the virtues of free software, and as time went on, the
 non-free stuff would wither on its own accord. The users came above
 evangelizing free software.

        The tenor of the project has changed.  No one argues that we
 need the non free stuff to survive anymore. The membership also seems
 to have shifted towards a more radical^H^H^H^Henthusiastic support of
 _only_ free software, and helping people use whatever they wish on
 Debian, while providing them with free alternatives, seems to be on
 the wane. I, for one, still believe in offering people alternatives
 and choices, within Debian, and letting them choose. 

        I'm sure that people shall rise up and flame me resoundingly
 for revisionist history, and set the record straight according to
 their recollection ;-). 

        manoj
 putting on absestos long johns

*This category includes the DFSG free licenses like BSD, X, Artistic,
 as well
-- 
 "But this one goes to eleven." Nigel Tufnel
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


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