On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 06:50:49PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote: > And the idea of gNewSense is rather strange: take 16000 > DFSG softwares, fork 1000 of them, add better desktop > integration for these 1000 apps, add non-DFSG bits, call > it Ubuntu then remove the non-ubuntu-free bits and call it > gNewSense. which is sort of like using Debian but with > better desktop integration and less apps.
When I first heard of it I felt the same, but it seems the outcome of some of the GRs have resulted in the gNewSense people considering Debian to be less than idealistic. [1] links to the two GRs. I personally think that the objections to [2] are incorrect, since the social contract clearly states _The packages in [ contrib and non-free ] are not part of the Debian system_. I think that gNewSense is a great idea, though. Debian is a pragmatic operating system, it is designed to be /used/. GNewSense is an idealistic OS, if it can't be used, then that's a consequence of freeness issues. I think Mark Pilgrim sums it's usefulness up nicely [3]: it's a reference implementation of software freedom. [1] <http://www.gnewsense.org/FAQ/FAQ#toc3> [2] <http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_002> [3] <http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/11/06/gnewsense> -- Jon Dowland -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]