On Tue, 06 May 2025 at 22:10:28 -0000, Marco d'Itri wrote:
[email protected] wrote:
Debian is unusual in the way we interpret our mission statement as
extending to everything we distribute being Free, not just our
executable code. Many other FOSS distributions apply the DFSG, the OSD,
the FSF's guidelines or similar principles to executable code (only),
and do not see a problem with having non-executable data that Debian
would consider to be non-Free.
I have been a Debian developer for almost 30 years, and I remember that
when I joined the project we had no plans to apply the DFSG to e.g.
documentation.
Then the "editorial changes" (not) GR happened, and some people were
very surprised by the practical outcome.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply that I think our interpretation is
necessarily the one that brings most benefit to our users and Free
Software, only that it's the one that the project enforces.
I personally think there's a risk that we put too much emphasis on
following the chain of "true" source code to justifiable but impractical
conclusions, at the expense of our ability to spend developers' finite
time and motivation on making our distribution better; but I can't claim
to have assessed whether this is a position that has consensus.
I also think we spend too much time thinking about "*the* preferred form
for modification" when it's sometimes more appropriate to be looking for
"*a* preferred form for modification" or even just "a form that would be
reasonable to modify as a way to exercise your Free Software rights".
Questions that have a clear answer for typical C/C++ source code do not
always have an equally clear answer for other digital works.
Hopefully there is room for some sort of nuance and cost/benefit
analysis beyond "if you and your upstream do not both meet the demands
of the most DFSG-maximalist developer, then your work will be thrown
away", which is unlikely to be good for anyone's state of mind
(certainly it isn't good for mine).
smcv
