Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On 20-Apr-05, 16:48 (CDT), Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Steve Greenland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > And now you say it's *still* going on? > > Yes. For various reasons, I'm more hopeful now than I have been > previously. Well, I'll be amazed and delighted when you prove me wrong, but I don't expect it. Steve -- Steve Greenland The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world. -- seen on the net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Steve Greenland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And now you say it's *still* going on? Yes. For various reasons, I'm more hopeful now than I have been previously. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On 20-Apr-05, 09:34 (CDT), Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > And Debian has tried to work on reducing the impact, by trying > > to convince the FSF to fix their license. Not only have they > > not done so, they've completely stonewalled, refusing to discuss > > the issue at all. Debian has done more than its part in trying > > to fix this. It didn't work. It's time to remove the non-free > > stuff (or will be soon). > > The fact that the discussion has not been public does not mean that the > FSF have refused to discuss the issue. Oh, come on. It's been what, 15 months since the FSF requested comments on the "draft" GFDL? (Or was that 2003?) They then released it unchanged, and made no visible response to the many questions/concerns raised in those comments. Since then we've heard several Debian developers say "We're talking to the FSF, but don't want to make public comments until the FSF says it's okay." (And that made sense, as it would to anyone whose been reading debian-devel (or -legal) for more than a week.) But we heard this last summer, and nothing ever came of it. And now you say it's *still* going on? I've got no doubts about the honesty and good intent of the Debian developers involved. I believe that they really think that the FSF will eventually make some sort of response. But you folks need to realize when you're being strung along, and get on with your lives. RMS has decided that it's more important to force people to distribute his essays than allow them share and reuse documentation. I think he's blown this decision, but it's fairly obvious at this point that he's not going to change his mind. All we can do is discourage use of the GFDL, and hope that the GPL3 isn't equally screwed up. Steve -- Steve Greenland The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world. -- seen on the net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And Debian has tried to work on reducing the impact, by trying > to convince the FSF to fix their license. Not only have they > not done so, they've completely stonewalled, refusing to discuss > the issue at all. Debian has done more than its part in trying > to fix this. It didn't work. It's time to remove the non-free > stuff (or will be soon). The fact that the discussion has not been public does not mean that the FSF have refused to discuss the issue. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Tue, Apr 19, 2005 at 09:31:53PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 12:03:07AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 05:31:52AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > If you really want to retain your "everything is software" point of > > > view, think about the consequences and work on them _before_ starting > > > the removals - and provide solutions for them that are available at the > > > time of the removals. > [...] > > And Debian has tried to work on reducing the impact, by trying > > to convince the FSF to fix their license. Not only have they > > not done so, they've completely stonewalled, refusing to discuss > > the issue at all. > > That's completely untrue, actually, though I think that stuff is still > confined to debian-private. I don't particularly care about super-secret discussions that I can't even see. Regardless, the FSF hasn't fixed their license, they've never indicated in any place I can see that there's any chance at all they'll remove invariant sections, and they've had a very long time to do so. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 12:03:07AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 05:31:52AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > If you really want to retain your "everything is software" point of > > view, think about the consequences and work on them _before_ starting > > the removals - and provide solutions for them that are available at the > > time of the removals. [...] > And Debian has tried to work on reducing the impact, by trying > to convince the FSF to fix their license. Not only have they > not done so, they've completely stonewalled, refusing to discuss > the issue at all. That's completely untrue, actually, though I think that stuff is still confined to debian-private. -- Society is never going to make any progress until we all learn to pretend to like each other. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 05:31:52AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > If you really want to retain your "everything is software" point of > view, think about the consequences and work on them _before_ starting > the removals - and provide solutions for them that are available at the > time of the removals. Huh? Debian has been considering the consequences of this for several years now, over the course of debate in *thousands* of list posts. The issue and its consequences have been considered at massive length. And Debian has tried to work on reducing the impact, by trying to convince the FSF to fix their license. Not only have they not done so, they've completely stonewalled, refusing to discuss the issue at all. Debian has done more than its part in trying to fix this. It didn't work. It's time to remove the non-free stuff (or will be soon). > Actions mentioned in this thread like autobuilding parts of non-free, > providing an installer that includes parts of non-free [1] and providing > a CD with the distributable part of non-free are prerequisites if your > users are still a priority for you. The magic words "users" and "priority" don't change one of the absolute fundamentals of Free Software development: if you want it, implement it. If *you* believe these things are important to users, then *you* implement them--don't expect others to, and don't claim that non-free stuff should remain in Debian because you're not able to do so. Your argument here can just as easily be applied to anything non-free; would you seriously claim that, if Qmail was in main and I was to file a bug against it for being non-free, that it should remain in main until I write a replacement "if users are still a priority"? That's not how it works. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 04:29:42AM +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > > Is this wanted? > > This may not be wanted, but what is your alternative? If you really want to retain your "everything is software" point of view, think about the consequences and work on them _before_ starting the removals - and provide solutions for them that are available at the time of the removals. Actions mentioned in this thread like autobuilding parts of non-free, providing an installer that includes parts of non-free [1] and providing a CD with the distributable part of non-free are prerequisites if your users are still a priority for you. > Greetings > Bernd cu Adrian [1] that includes hardware drivers you are removing from the kernel sources -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Tue, Apr 19, 2005 at 06:56:53PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 10:08:50AM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: > > How about having a new section, "open-source", or something, for the > > things that fall in the category described above? (i.e. software that > > is _almost_ free, but has some small limitation over some freedom) > > Debian is hard pressed to consistently distinguish "free" from "not free"; > it doesn't seem like a practical use of time to have a "sort of free" > category in between. > > That said, there have been discussions about ways to break down non-free > further, without necessarily creating new sections, eg. > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/04/msg00066.html > > to allow, for example, CD vendors to more easily tell which parts of > non-free they can safely distribute without satisfying extra conditions. Also, James Troup indicated (at LCA2005 yesterday) that it WOULD be necessary to separate non-free into auto-buildable and not if anything is going to be auto-built. Given the increased importance of non-free post-sarge this seems like a good idea. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 10:08:50AM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: > How about having a new section, "open-source", or something, for the > things that fall in the category described above? (i.e. software that > is _almost_ free, but has some small limitation over some freedom) Debian is hard pressed to consistently distinguish "free" from "not free"; it doesn't seem like a practical use of time to have a "sort of free" category in between. That said, there have been discussions about ways to break down non-free further, without necessarily creating new sections, eg. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/04/msg00066.html to allow, for example, CD vendors to more easily tell which parts of non-free they can safely distribute without satisfying extra conditions. > I know that having a new section would be a bit cumbersome, but I do > feel that the mixture of different "freeness" in non-free is a bit > unfair for those pieces of software that just fail a small point. I don't believe "forbidden to be modified in any way" to be a "small point". -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 10:08:50AM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: > How about having a new section, "open-source", or something, for the > things that fall in the category described above? (i.e. software that > is _almost_ free, but has some small limitation over some freedom) Let's call it "free as in free-beer" :) Greetings Torsten signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 10:55:13PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > Anyway, this is getting quite off-topic. Please reply off-list, if at > all. How are potential consequences of licensing restrictions off-topic (to -project, anyway)? They seem directly relevant to the question of whether and why a given restriction is non-free. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 09:12:27PM +0100, Matthew Woodcraft wrote: > Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > The fact that there is a need for a rebuttal, in the first place, is > > already a sign that something is very wrong. > > I don't argue with that. But when we explain why the GFDL is bad, we > shouldn't exaggerate problems, any more than we should try to play them > down. [...] > In that case, the 'rebuttal' can just be a brief note explaining that > the invariant section was the personal opinion of someone who no longer > works on the document. I don't think I'm exaggerating any problems. Indeed, it is possible to write a short rebuttal without using the option of an invariant section. However, human nature being what it is, I expect most of these rebuttals will be more than just a few phrases, and will be invariant. Of course I'm not saying that this is what always will happen, but it's a possibility, and (I dare say) not an unlikely one. Anyway, this is getting quite off-topic. Please reply off-list, if at all. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > >* The Invariant Section is retained, but another Invariant Section > > > containing a rebuttal is added to the document. This would a) look > > > silly, and b) be a beginning of Invariant Section bloat, in which a > > > document could consist of 10% Invariant Sections, 60% rebuttals to > > > Invariant Sections, and 30% of actual, useful, documentation. > > > > I do not think this option is as bad as you make it sound. > > The fact that there is a need for a rebuttal, in the first place, is > already a sign that something is very wrong. I don't argue with that. But when we explain why the GFDL is bad, we shouldn't exaggerate problems, any more than we should try to play them down. > > There is no need for the rebuttal to be made invariant, and the > > rebuttal could just be a brief note explaining that the invariant > > section refers to a situation which has gone away. > > Well, yeah, in the specific example I gave. Consider the possibility > that the original section refers to a situation which has not gone away, > but that the original author of the document has moved on to go do other > stuff, and that the current maintainers have a different opinion on what > the problem exactly is. In that case, the 'rebuttal' can just be a brief note explaining that the invariant section was the personal opinion of someone who no longer works on the document. > ... and now they move on to other things as well. If the current maintainers want to explain their opinions on the secondary matter, they can still do that without making their new piece invariant. So there need be no more bloat when they move on. -M- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 08:42:25PM +0100, Matthew Woodcraft wrote: > Wouter Verhelst wrote: > >* The Invariant Section is retained, but another Invariant Section > > containing a rebuttal is added to the document. This would a) look > > silly, and b) be a beginning of Invariant Section bloat, in which a > > document could consist of 10% Invariant Sections, 60% rebuttals to > > Invariant Sections, and 30% of actual, useful, documentation. > > I do not think this option is as bad as you make it sound. The fact that there is a need for a rebuttal, in the first place, is already a sign that something is very wrong. > There is no need for the rebuttal to be made invariant, and the > rebuttal could just be a brief note explaining that the invariant > section refers to a situation which has gone away. Well, yeah, in the specific example I gave. Consider the possibility that the original section refers to a situation which has not gone away, but that the original author of the document has moved on to go do other stuff, and that the current maintainers have a different opinion on what the problem exactly is. ... and now they move on to other things as well. See? -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Wouter Verhelst wrote: >A more realistic example would be > >Answer: Because the document contains an invariant section on the > author's opinion regarding the dangers of Software Patents in > the European Union. > >Something like that simply is not free. It might be true at the time the >piece is written; However, should the situation regarding Software >Patents in the European Union ever change, then there are three >possibilities: [...] >* The Invariant Section is retained, but another Invariant Section > containing a rebuttal is added to the document. This would a) look > silly, and b) be a beginning of Invariant Section bloat, in which a > document could consist of 10% Invariant Sections, 60% rebuttals to > Invariant Sections, and 30% of actual, useful, documentation. I do not think this option is as bad as you make it sound. There is no need for the rebuttal to be made invariant, and the rebuttal could just be a brief note explaining that the invariant section refers to a situation which has gone away. -M- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 05:54:08AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 10:35:36PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > You present some incredibly strange arguments: you're not arguing that the > > gcc manual is Free, but instead, apparently, saying "we shouldn't move non- > > I'd personally consider the gcc manual being free. > > But I'm attacking another point in the chain: > Is the effect of what you are doing really in the spirit behind it or > is it counter-productive? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. If you think it is free, then try to convince people that it is so; if you have sound arguments to that effect and are able to convince people by those arguments, I'm sure the problem will solve itself. If you choose not to do that, then the assumption is that you accept the statement that the GFDL is not free. Thus, unless you have a good argument as to why it should not be moved away from main, that is what will happen. And I'm sorry to say so, but "it's useful to have it in main" is not a very strong argument to that effect. It would be useful to have Microsoft Internet Explorer in main, too -- would make it a bit easier to look at websites created by braindead "webdesigners" -- but we don't do that, for a very good reason. [...] > upgrades. If a system administrator has to choose between e.g. Gentoo > and Debian, the percentage of system administrators who understand or > want to understand the differences between the "free software" > definitions of the two projects will be negligible - the decision will > be based on technical reasons and personal preferences. And such is their right. But that doesn't mean we should make the Debian experience for those of our users who prefer to use only non-free software, any harder. > Even further many Debian installations are used as a basis for non-free > software - which is a configuration Debian has promised to support. And so we do, both by providing a stable, working, computing environment and by providing the non-free mirror archive network. > As an example, 14 000 computers in the administration of my home town > will soon be based on Debian. This project will be a success for both [...] > Linux. I doubt anyone will care how many percent of this solution will > be DFSG-free. ... and I doubt anyone will care how many percent of this solution will have 'non-free' in /etc/apt/sources.list, too. > Why is $foo in non-free? [...] > Case 2: foo = some documentation > Answer: Because the document contains a invariant section in which > the author says he dedicates this manual to his dead father. Per the GFDL, dedications are not invariant sections and can indeed be modified, so long as the "substance and tone" of the dedications are preserved (GFDL section 4, point K). A more realistic example would be Answer: Because the document contains an invariant section on the author's opinion regarding the dangers of Software Patents in the European Union. Something like that simply is not free. It might be true at the time the piece is written; However, should the situation regarding Software Patents in the European Union ever change, then there are three possibilities: * The author chooses to remove the Invariant Section. This would be the best option; however, the fact that many Free Software projects are community efforts, where such Invariant Sections might be written by many authors together suggests to me that this is not always possible (contact information of some of those authors might be lost, (one of) the author(s) might have passed away, ...). * The Invariant Section is retained, and nothing is done about it. As a result, the documentation would contain a section that is (eventually, severely) out-of-date. This would not only look silly, it might also make people not familiar with the GFDL wonder whether the documentation itself is completely up-to-date. * The Invariant Section is retained, but another Invariant Section containing a rebuttal is added to the document. This would a) look silly, and b) be a beginning of Invariant Section bloat, in which a document could consist of 10% Invariant Sections, 60% rebuttals to Invariant Sections, and 30% of actual, useful, documentation. > In the first case you might have convinced a system administrator that > non-free software has serious disadvantages. > > In the second case you'll hear a loud laugher. Only because the explanation wasn't good enough. If you explain that the nVidia-drivers are in non-free because "you can't get the source", without explaining why you would want that source in the first place, and without explaining that this is Free as in Freedom, rather than Free as in no cost, chances are high that you'll hear a loud laughter, too. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a s
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 06:14:58AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 11:15:29PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 04:29:42AM +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > > > > Is this wanted? > > > > > > This may not be wanted, but what is your alternative? > > > > Well, it's not that we don't want gcc's documentation to be moved to > > non-free; rather, we don't want gcc's documentation to *be* non-free. > > The moving to non-free is just a side-effect; Adrian seems to be > > saying that we should eliminate the side-effect and ignore the core > > problem. > > What is the "core problem"? > > Are the differences between the FSF and Debian regarding issues like > invariant sections in Debian really the core problem? On this issue, yes. > Or are things like hardware with binary-only drivers and without > specifications or software patents more important problems? Those are separate issues. It's not as if we suddenly turn a blind eye to binary-only drivers and software patents if we go on a crusade against non-free documentation. > As I tried to express in the "system administrator" example in the email > I sent a few minutes ago, I'm sure nearly everyone outside the inner > circle of the free software world will consider the whole GFDL > discussion as being absurd. Many people outside the community consider the whole "Free Software" vs "Open Source" discussion as being absurd, too; but the fact that this is true doesn't mean that the discussion is pointless, or that the cause isn't a worthy one. > In the Qt/GPL case Debian was at least able to argue that it would > otherwise break laws which convinces many people. Debian is about more than 'not breaking laws'. > And if the FSF doesn't want to change the GFDL in a way that Debian > wants I doubt moving GFDL'ed documentation to non-free will put much > pressure on them. Well, I guess that's a chance we have to take. In any case, our users should always have the option of getting the documentation from non-free. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Adrian Bunk wrote: > The invariant section issues are things you can discuss inside Debian or > with me or with the FSF. But for nearly everyone else the result if you > explain the GFDL problem will be that he thinks that the differences > between free and non-free software are pretty small. For nearly everyone else software is free if you don't have to pay for it. Should we then package everything that won't get us sued? -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Saturday 16 April 2005 09:28 am, Adrian Bunk wrote: > The invariant section issues are things you can discuss inside Debian or > with me or with the FSF. But for nearly everyone else the result if you > explain the GFDL problem will be that he thinks that the differences > between free and non-free software are pretty small. A lot of people can't understand why we would consider software that comes with source code, is freely distributable, and may be modified in any way to be non-free simply because its license states that you may not use it if you are a business/work at a nuclear plant/are a member of a neo-Nazi group. So, should we put software like that into main so that they don't "think the differences between free and non-free software are pretty small"? If not, I'm not sure I see what you're trying to say either. Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --\ | "Next, consider a circle passing through infinity; that | | is, a straight line.." | \-- (if (not (understand-this)) (go-to http://www.schemers.org)) ---/ pgpb3P83iKPYZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 12:31:23AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 05:54:08AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: >... > > Case 1: foo = nvidia binary modules > > Answer: Because these modules are binary-nonly and therefore > > undebuggable for everyone except Nvidia. They give you a > > much better 3D performance, but they sometimes lead to > > kernel crashes. > > > > Case 2: foo = some documentation > > Answer: Because the document contains a invariant section in which > > the author says he dedicates this manual to his dead father. > > > > > > > > In the first case you might have convinced a system administrator that > > non-free software has serious disadvantages. > > > > In the second case you'll hear a loud laugher. > > Maybe, since you conspicuously omitted the "and therefore" part in > case 2; the practical problems with invariant sections have been well > explored. (I'm not going to waste my time digging up discussions about > them for you, since you'll just complain that they're not an "official > position statement". Find them yourself.) It's not about a "and therefore" in the text I wrote. You missed my main point: Most people can't be convinced by reading a statement what Debian considers free and what not. But they can be convinced by technical arguments why free software is superior. You can convince people that non-free software is bad if you explain stability problems with the nvidia binary modules or the reason why majordomo was removed from non-free to them. The invariant section issues are things you can discuss inside Debian or with me or with the FSF. But for nearly everyone else the result if you explain the GFDL problem will be that he thinks that the differences between free and non-free software are pretty small. > Glenn Maynard cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 05:54:08AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > Is the effect of what you are doing really in the spirit behind it or > is it counter-productive? It's well in the spirit of it. Documentation with political manifestos bolted on that we're not allowed to touch or remove isn't free, just like Reiser demanding that reiserfs tools display a page of credits when the tools start is non-free. > First of all note that the vast majority of Debian users did choose > Debian for technical reasons like the stability of stable or the working > upgrades. If a system administrator has to choose between e.g. Gentoo > and Debian, the percentage of system administrators who understand or > want to understand the differences between the "free software" > definitions of the two projects will be negligible - the decision will > be based on technical reasons and personal preferences. Here, you're arguing that putting stuff that people might need in Debian is more important than keeping Debian free; that Debian should throw away its principles entirely, and put Netscape (pardoning the anachronism) and Qmail in main, since they're really important to some people. I don't feel this is an argument worth the time to respond to. > Even further many Debian installations are used as a basis for non-free > software - which is a configuration Debian has promised to support. I don't even know what point you're trying to make here. If you're trying to convince Debian that non-free software is important and should be in the main distribution, you're free to try (though I won't waste my time with it), but I have no idea what relevance it has. > Case 1: foo = nvidia binary modules > Answer: Because these modules are binary-nonly and therefore > undebuggable for everyone except Nvidia. They give you a > much better 3D performance, but they sometimes lead to > kernel crashes. > > Case 2: foo = some documentation > Answer: Because the document contains a invariant section in which > the author says he dedicates this manual to his dead father. > > > > In the first case you might have convinced a system administrator that > non-free software has serious disadvantages. > > In the second case you'll hear a loud laugher. Maybe, since you conspicuously omitted the "and therefore" part in case 2; the practical problems with invariant sections have been well explored. (I'm not going to waste my time digging up discussions about them for you, since you'll just complain that they're not an "official position statement". Find them yourself.) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 08:48:22PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Apologies if I misedited your e-mail. I am not trying to parrot or > straw man what you said. It's just complicated and I am trying to make > my reply readable. If I messed something up, let me know and I'll > correct my error(s). A couple asides: Please quote properly; follow the example of the others on the list. It'll make your replies much easier to read. Also, please set a name in your From: header; I can't mentally associate something as silly-looking as "foo_bar_baz_boo-deb" as a human being, and almost everyone on these lists has a From: header with a real name that at least looks reasonable. > I agree that there is a good reason for non-free. I believe the > justification / reason / purpose of non-free is to earmark data > (software, etc.) which cannot be redistributed by CD vendors. Java is a > good example because Sun will not let just anybody hand out copies of > different parts of it. No, that is not the purpose of non-free (though it's one useful secondary purpose). The purpose is being able to package things separately which are not DFSG-free. Things which are DFSG-unfree but are still freely distributable are intended--and have always been intended--to go to non-free. (There have been various discussions of how to further split non-free, to tag which pieces can be distributed by CD vendors and which can't.) The boundary between main and non-free is very straightforward: whether the work is DFSG-free or not. Nothing else enters into it. > < non-free > software, such as Qmail, several important Java implementations, > BitKeeper, and (some years back) Netscape. The argument is > consistently and resoundingly rejected for those works. Why should it > be accepted for documentation?>> > > Again, I think the argument (I am not saying I agree/disagree with it, > I'm just trying to see that it gets communicated) is that the > non-freeness of other things in non-free is different from the kinds of > non-freeness existant in GFDL-covered materials. Qmail is "freely distributable" (if I remember correctly), with significant limitations on modification. GFDL documents are "freely distributable", with significant limitations on modification. How are they so different that they should be treated in any way differently? > Using non-free should be doable, but not to the extent it becomes a > knee-jerk reflex or default course of action. If we decide GFDL is not > free enough, then (this will sound dumb and reduntant to everyone but I > need to say it) we should not go about sneaking it into main for > convenience. Using non-free (or not packaging at all, depending) *should* be the default course of action, when non-free works are discovered. The GFDL is not free enough, and not even remotely close: there are non-essential (non-license- text) pieces that *can't be modified at all*, or even removed. (I find it continually disappointing that people will actually argue that completely invariant, untouchable text is "free enough"; I have to wonder why they're even here.) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 11:15:29PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 04:29:42AM +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > > > Is this wanted? > > > > This may not be wanted, but what is your alternative? > > Well, it's not that we don't want gcc's documentation to be moved to > non-free; rather, we don't want gcc's documentation to *be* non-free. > The moving to non-free is just a side-effect; Adrian seems to be > saying that we should eliminate the side-effect and ignore the core > problem. What is the "core problem"? Are the differences between the FSF and Debian regarding issues like invariant sections in Debian really the core problem? Or are things like hardware with binary-only drivers and without specifications or software patents more important problems? As I tried to express in the "system administrator" example in the email I sent a few minutes ago, I'm sure nearly everyone outside the inner circle of the free software world will consider the whole GFDL discussion as being absurd. In the Qt/GPL case Debian was at least able to argue that it would otherwise break laws which convinces many people. And if the FSF doesn't want to change the GFDL in a way that Debian wants I doubt moving GFDL'ed documentation to non-free will put much pressure on them. > Glenn Maynard cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
Apologies if I misedited your e-mail. I am not trying to parrot or straw man what you said. It's just complicated and I am trying to make my reply readable. If I messed something up, let me know and I'll correct my error(s). --- Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [Begin snippage...] <> I agree that there is a good reason for non-free. I believe the justification / reason / purpose of non-free is to earmark data (software, etc.) which cannot be redistributed by CD vendors. Java is a good example because Sun will not let just anybody hand out copies of different parts of it. The problem I think we all have is that this original purpose for non-free does not seem to cover GFDL documentation, which is redistributable and substantially free in many senses, which is clearly not the case for the other examples you cite below: <> Again, I think the argument (I am not saying I agree/disagree with it, I'm just trying to see that it gets communicated) is that the non-freeness of other things in non-free is different from the kinds of non-freeness existant in GFDL-covered materials. <> I agree here. People need to be poked and prodded into avoiding things that are non-free or it will be harder for the free software cause as a whole to move ahead. RMS wrote about the idea of advancing the free software cause by preventing people from deriving certain benefits from leveraging free software to create or distribute encumbered software. The Linux kernel also imposes some of these rules by not exporting certain symbols to encumbered kernel modules. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html Using non-free should be doable, but not to the extent it becomes a knee-jerk reflex or default course of action. If we decide GFDL is not free enough, then (this will sound dumb and reduntant to everyone but I need to say it) we should not go about sneaking it into main for convenience. <> Agreed. If we decide it's encumbered, it's best for our cause overall if we are providing motivation to create better (licensing-wise, technical-wise, in any way we can) alternatives rather than just living with it and letting it become a trap like Java is. BTW, I shudder to think what could happen to all of these tools people have written in Java if Sun and IBM decide to shut Java down someday or encumber the licensing to the point of unusability, or to de-support an older or rarer processor / OS configuration (oh wait, I have that problem on my SPARC Linux system, sucks to be me). Well anyhow, that's my $0.02 and my rant for today on this topic. Cheers! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 10:35:36PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: >... > > What do you win by moving things to non-free? > > You inform people that what they're using is not Free. That's a fundamental > purpose of non-free: to be able to make some important but non-free pieces > available to users, while allowing users to know that some of the stuff > they're using is non-free, if they care. > > You present some incredibly strange arguments: you're not arguing that the > gcc manual is Free, but instead, apparently, saying "we shouldn't move non- I'd personally consider the gcc manual being free. But I'm attacking another point in the chain: Is the effect of what you are doing really in the spirit behind it or is it counter-productive? > free stuff to non-free because it teaches people that they need non-free > things". Here's a tip: it's a *good thing* to teach people that they > still need non-free things, if it's the truth; it just might inspire > people to create free versions, or convince the FSF to free up their works. > That's a fundamental reason for separating non-free, and that's never changed. What is the impression of the people you try to teach something to? First of all note that the vast majority of Debian users did choose Debian for technical reasons like the stability of stable or the working upgrades. If a system administrator has to choose between e.g. Gentoo and Debian, the percentage of system administrators who understand or want to understand the differences between the "free software" definitions of the two projects will be negligible - the decision will be based on technical reasons and personal preferences. Even further many Debian installations are used as a basis for non-free software - which is a configuration Debian has promised to support. As an example, 14 000 computers in the administration of my home town will soon be based on Debian. This project will be a success for both the companies who got the contract and the overall public reputation of Linux and Debian if the resulting solution will be able to completely replace the current Microsoft-based solution. If the resulting solution will fail, this will be a major drawback in the public reputation of Linux. I doubt anyone will care how many percent of this solution will be DFSG-free. The point when you can teach people about non-free comes later: One day, a system administrator using Debian asks: Why is $foo in non-free? Case 1: foo = nvidia binary modules Answer: Because these modules are binary-nonly and therefore undebuggable for everyone except Nvidia. They give you a much better 3D performance, but they sometimes lead to kernel crashes. Case 2: foo = some documentation Answer: Because the document contains a invariant section in which the author says he dedicates this manual to his dead father. In the first case you might have convinced a system administrator that non-free software has serious disadvantages. In the second case you'll hear a loud laugher. > Glenn Maynard cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 04:29:42AM +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > > Is this wanted? > > This may not be wanted, but what is your alternative? Well, it's not that we don't want gcc's documentation to be moved to non-free; rather, we don't want gcc's documentation to *be* non-free. The moving to non-free is just a side-effect; Adrian seems to be saying that we should eliminate the side-effect and ignore the core problem. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
(This seems like a discussion for -project, although little new is being said.) On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 03:54:45AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > Currently, this works and this documentation is shipped with gcc. But > post-sarge this documentation will move to non-free. And that's fine. If you need non-free stuff, install it from non-free. That's why it exists; to allow packaging things that are important to some people, but not free--such as the gcc manual. > The second point might only be a minor nuisance for me, but the first > one will tell me that Debian would be much less usable if I wouldn't use > non-free. > > Is this wanted? The (exact!) same argument has been applied to lots of useful non-free software, such as Qmail, several important Java implementations, BitKeeper, and (some years back) Netscape. The argument is consistently and resoundingly rejected for those works. Why should it be accepted for documentation? Being in non-free isn't a condemnation. It means the contents are not Free, and it's up to the user to decide whether to use it anyway. Having GFDL documentation in main does not *make* it free. > And teaching people that in many cases non-free is a required component > for them doesn't help free software. Today, you can tell a user that GFDL documentation is non-free. Teaching people that freedom is important only so long as it's convenient, and that freedom is willingly sacrificed at the FSF's whim, will *cripple* free software. > What do you win by moving things to non-free? You inform people that what they're using is not Free. That's a fundamental purpose of non-free: to be able to make some important but non-free pieces available to users, while allowing users to know that some of the stuff they're using is non-free, if they care. You present some incredibly strange arguments: you're not arguing that the gcc manual is Free, but instead, apparently, saying "we shouldn't move non- free stuff to non-free because it teaches people that they need non-free things". Here's a tip: it's a *good thing* to teach people that they still need non-free things, if it's the truth; it just might inspire people to create free versions, or convince the FSF to free up their works. That's a fundamental reason for separating non-free, and that's never changed. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > Is this wanted? This may not be wanted, but what is your alternative? Greetings Bernd -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What do you win by moving things to non-free?
[Can we *PLEASE* move this conversation to an appropriate list, like -project? MFT: set appropriately, and Cc:'ed for good measure.] On Sat, 16 Apr 2005, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 09:07:58AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > > But why can people only use documentation if it's in Debian main? > > Let me try to explain it: > > We agree that there's several software where not DFSG-free > documentation [1] is required for many usages of the software. Probably not required, since the documentation isn't a Depends: of the package, merely a Recommends: or Suggests:. [Let's s/required/useful/ and continue.] > Unless I want to search and use the upstream documentation locations > of every affected software I use, I have to add non-free to my > sources.list and take care that I install the now separate > documentation packages for all software I use. In almost all cases the documentation is already separated... but lets continue on anyway. > The second point might only be a minor nuisance for me, but the > first one will tell me that Debian would be much less usable if I > wouldn't use non-free. So you're objecting to the fact that the non-free documentation is going to be present in the non-free part of the ftp archive? Fine. You have my permission to call the non-free part of the ftp archive "freedom impaired." Does that help?[1] Or is it that you want Debian to ship the non-free documentation in main so you can close your eyes to the fact that the documentation is not free? > If Debian continues to get much "Debian anyway considers everything > non-free" reputation for being more fundamentalistic than even RMS, > less external people will seriously consider comments of Debian on > licence problems. So we should not worry at all about licensing issues? How would Qt have been relicensed then?[2][3] > What do you win by moving things to non-free? We make the separation between which works are free, and which works are not free quite clear and distinct. That's it. Surely it's more logical to do that than to ship non-free works in main? Don Armstrong 1: Hell, I'll even set up a redirect alias that points to an appropriate mirror of the non-free package list if this is a major sticking point. 2: Astute observers will note that the incompatibility of the QPL with the GPL and the DFSG may be partially Debian's fault. 3: As a final note, it's not like any of the license deliberations have been reached in vacuo or in camera. If anyone feels that specific errors have been made in -legal's determination of a license's status, please, please, read the appropriate list archives where the license has been discussed, and point out the errors. Even though everyone on -legal tries to do a thorough, fair, and impartial job, mistakes are made from time to time. -- Build a fire for a man, an he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. -- Jules Bean http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
