On Thu, Oct 23 2008, martin f krafft wrote: > It's all a matter of defining what your priorities are, which brings > us back to the Social Contract, which says that these include: > > - 100% freeness > - cater best to the interests of our users
Frankly, this mindset infuriates me. It frames the discussion incorrectly, it implies that freeness and user interest are at odds. Logically, it aargues that Windows is the best for users, since it caters to newbies, and is not free- and since the implication is that freedom can be taken too far, allowing the users freedom to see movies legally, to use MS office and photoshop legally might triump the new fangled linux thingy. No. Freedom is in the long term best interests of the users. We allow people to use non-free stuff, yes -- but we do so not by tainting main, but by putting these tools to help the unfortunate folks who cannot take advantage of a free operating system. The same goes for people who are complaining oabout advocates of the social contract and libre software, calling them folks who do not care for users. I contend that people who stuff main with non-free stuff _are_ the ones acting against the interests of the suers in the long term, since freedom is the gift that Debian started out trying to give users. Why is not putting non-free firmware in non-free not the right thing to do? Why is trying to create a 100% free distribution, as our SC states, supposed ot be the dark side? I hope the few loud voices acting against the interests of the users by trying to prevent Debian from providing them a free operating system are indeed few. manoj -- The beauty of a pun is in the "Oy!" of the beholder. Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]