Re: Why Anthony Towns is wrong
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 10:20:49PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: What, exactly, is the problem with keeping this debate at a technical level, rather than making it personal? While I'm happy to talk about whether non-free should be kept or not, I'm not interested in having a debate focussed on whether I'm personally wrong or right. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could. http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 09:45:43PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think [foo] but the mere possibility of [bar] isn't a problem even if we decided [baz]. So your position is that we should have non-free for as long as there is any doubt whatsoever if there will ever be a package to place in it? No, my position is that it'd make sense to remove non-free when there are only a handful of packages to be kept there, because it's likely none of them would be particularly interesting and the effort of keeping non-free in the archive wouldn't be justified. [foo] But even if Debian adopts a more extreme position, namely that non-free shouldn't be removed while there's a prospect of non-free software being packaged and useful for our users [baz], that doesn't cause any problems because as long as the trend remains that non-free software is becoming less and less necessary, we'll eventually reach a day where that condition is satisfied [!bar]. And I don't know how we could ever have that confidence, unless the copyright laws get changed, because someone could always write something and make it non-free but distributable. First, I'd hope that over the long term we do change our copyright and patent laws. I've got no problems with keeping non-free until that happens. Second, the way you ensure these things in a free society is by ensuring that people realise it's in their best interests to be writing free software: by demonstrating that it can be more profitable, less costly, more effective, and more flexible. There are a bunch of cases where we can't demonstrate that yet. I believe if we give free software a reasonable chunk more time, we will be able to demonstrate it, and I've got no problem with keeping non-free until we have done so. Perhaps I've misunderstood. Is there some minimal number of packages such that if we have only that small number, we can disregard them and close down non-free, in your opinion? No, not particularly. The cutoff is when the administrative burden of worrying about non-free becomes more than it's worth to its users; I'd suspect that'll come when there's but a handful of packages there, but it might come sooner (if there are a couple of dozen packages that are all pretty pointless), or it might come later (if we have one or two packages that are really important to some users that are really hard to replace). That's the system we've already got -- people don't like maintaining non-free software, so when there really is some free software that fills the same niche, it gets dropped by the maintainer. If you'd like to do QA work making sure that happens more promptly than it does atm, please do. In practice, this is not true. Often there is a different maintainer, who continues to maintain it because he likes it, completely independent of whether there is a free alternative. If he still likes it, then it does some things better than the free alternative. Netscape did not get dropped because free web browsers became available; Netscape, eg, worked with various plugins better than mozilla did. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could. http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: keep non-free proposal
On 6 Mar 2004, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: In which case, it's gone. We currently have a distribution which is not 100% Free Software, as our contract promised. We should fix that. I don't understand how you can say that. My memory is a little bad, but when I joined there certainly was a non-free section but there was no social contract or DFSG. Those came later. I even remember an entirely pragmatic reason for non-free - it contained things that a CD vendor could not safely put on CD. Eventually the DFSG and Social Contract came about, but my recollection is that in true Debian style they were both largely codifications of current practice and did not directly conflict with anything the project was already doing. The role non-free plays and the distinction between the distribution and the project was a reflection of the compromise at the time between the people who wanted to produce a distribution and the people who wanted to persue a political goal of 100% free software. non-free didn't suddenly appear at some point after the social contract, it existed at the time the SC was published and the SC was designed to allow for it. This should be self evident because the SC was not a statement of future goals, but of the current status quo. So I don't think we have broken any promises. The problem is that many years later it isn't entirely clear what the promises were. Jason -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: still more questions for the candidates
Hi! I resist to allow my tamagotchi to dress in Branden and Martin skins, and answer their questions too... I donot know how longer I can keep him from doing that, though... I have a tamagotchi too! He's called Foo (I have a limited imagination) Why is your tamagotchi more suited to running the project and being world dictator than mine? How do I get inside the shopkeeper's safe so I can get that credit note? Ask him for credit, tell him you have an income. He'll got to the safe, and open it (write down how he pushes and pulls the lever(?), you'll need to know that). Then tell him you want to fight the swordmaster. He leaves, you open the safe, by pushing and pulling the lever as the shopkeeper did, and you'll find the credit note. What do we spend the profit on? We hire costume designers to design outfits for our tamagotchies. (Keeping a tama will be mandatory. Did I forget to say so in my platform?) What do you see as the greatest weakness of the project? Myself? O:) What new challenges do you plan to present to the project? If elected, it will be a great challenge to the project to survive ;] Other than that, it is s3kr1t, and I'll only tell my plans to the Cabal, that does not exist (or so the member say). Gotta keep something to do after the elections, right? Do you believe that if either Branden or Martin are elected instead of you that you would be able to work with them to achieve the goals you outline in your platform[2]? A long long time ago, on a different IRC network, there was a #debian-bugs channel, were Master tbm and some of his minions outlined the Great Debilan Plan.. I was one of the minions then, and I believe, I can still work with him to achieve the goals outlined in my platform. Questions is, do we want to achive every goal I outlined there? :) As for Branden... To work with him, I need his Sodomotron. Yamm won't let me speak with him otherwise *cry* :| -- Gergelybrush Nagywood -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
* Debian Project Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 18:55]: [ ] Choice 1: Cease active support of non-free [3:1 majority needed] If one votes that non-free will be purged completely, from what I understand. Right? Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. I guess its this: [ ] Choice 2: Re-affirm support for non-free And yet another GR once nonfree.org is up and running. Aren't we a happy bureocracy... So long, Alfie -- When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
Previously Raul Miller wrote: One thing I'd really like to see (in apt-get, apt-cache, dpkg, dpkg-deb, and so on), is some kind of tag indicating the origin of the package. You mean like the Origin tag that has been supported for a few years now? Wichert. -- Wichert Akkerman [EMAIL PROTECTED]It is simple to make things. http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
* Gerfried Fuchs ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 11:25]: * Debian Project Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 18:55]: [ ] Choice 1: Cease active support of non-free [3:1 majority needed] If one votes that non-free will be purged completely, from what I understand. Right? Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. In neither case non-free is removed for sarge, so there is enough time to get up a non-free.org if choice 1 is taken and a non-free.org is wanted. I guess its this: [ ] Choice 2: Re-affirm support for non-free And yet another GR once nonfree.org is up and running. Aren't we a happy bureocracy... No. Choice 2 is: Let's keep non-free. And both Choices have one in common: Settle that issue for the next time. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 10:56:30AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: * Debian Project Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 18:55]: [ ] Choice 1: Cease active support of non-free [3:1 majority needed] If one votes that non-free will be purged completely, from what I understand. Right? Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. It's both the same option. I strongly believe that we will have non-free.org up at about the same time we drop non-free from the Debian archive. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:16:08PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You can't argue for a change by saying that the current system's no good because it's the current system. I didn't say that, but apparently the thread has been lost. Sven sounded like he was saying that at some point it would be the right time to change, but not now. Which implies that when can't be answered by never. His later statements seem to have confirmed that I misunderstood, and that he agrees with you that we should never change our policy about non-free. It will be the rigth time when we (and our user) are not forced to rely on non-free pieces of software to run debian. Thomas, please tell me, what is the licencing situation of the bios you run ? And if your motherboard has some defect, are you able to look at the source code for the chipset, and modify it, or possibly make sure there is not some unwanted trojan included there ? But i forgot, you only care about non-free should not be distributed from debian, not about really running on a fully free plateform, and this will only happen the day Debian is ready to stop any relation with non-free companies, which includes dropping support for nvidia, and clearly stating so on our web pages, but which also includes stopping accepting money from Oreilly, which sponsored our debconf 2003, while at the same time refusing to free the ocaml-books licence for example. Are you ready for this yet ? And also, like said, altough i have some respect for Branden's reason, that we might use the removal of non-free as some negotiating stick against upstream not wanting to free the code, this wanting to drop non-free for hypothetical cosmetic reasons is nonsense. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On 2004-03-08 12:04:50 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:39:43PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-06 10:20:44 + Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: elfutils was removed on the request of its maintainer on 9th December. elfutils is not an example of removal from non-free. It was in main. I filed bug #221761 after a debian-legal discussion pointed it out. And ? The fact that it previously was in non-free but is now in main doesn't count ? Was it? It's not now in main. The initial upload elfutils upload was to main in July 2003 (version 0.84-1). It was removed from main on 9th December (bug 221761). When was it in non-free? [...] The packages are not more actively removed, because nobody, including the remove non-free proponent, care enough about it. As far as I can tell, Andrew Suffield and others are working as much as they can on reducing non-free through analysing licences and explaining the DFSG in that context. I doubt you have any reason to accuse them of not caring enough. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 10:23:29AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 08:48:31AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Let's take two examples : netscape : it was in non-free a long time ago, and since the advance of mozilla and the other free browser, i believe it reached a point where we could sanely say that there is no use for the old netscape packages, and even that their continued existence posed a threat to security and such, and they could be removed. This maybe didn't happen as soon as it could have been, but it was because we didn't care enough, and because even the non-free removal advocate do care more aboure removing the word non-free from everything debian, than the actual freeness of the packages. To iterate: I consider this as the prime example for the failure of the 'getting rid of non-free, because better Free alternatives exist now' theory. To the best of my knowledge, Netscape did *not* get removed because 'Mozilla/Konqueror/Galeon are better', but because 'Oops, we can't fix that zlib bug and there is no upstream fix'. Yeah, but that is a failure in the process of handling non-free, not because this is what we wanted. And mostly because the remove non-free proponents didn't care enough to ask for its removal at that time. And if you remember well, my position is to keep non-free for now, but to more actively work to be able to remove non-free packages individually, either because the licence changed or because a free alternative has been found. And i don't see anyone of the drop non-free proponent specially active in advocating free replacement of packages in non-free. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:39:43PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-06 10:20:44 + Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: elfutils was removed on the request of its maintainer on 9th December. elfutils is not an example of removal from non-free. It was in main. I filed bug #221761 after a debian-legal discussion pointed it out. And ? The fact that it previously was in non-free but is now in main doesn't count ? Sure, it was not in the time period asked, but still it is a package who moved from non-free to main. The fact that the removal got delayed only proves my point. The packages are not more actively removed, because nobody, including the remove non-free proponent, care enough about it. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:41:20PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:18:34PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Or if it is clear that upstream is not going to change, have the possibility to remove it from our archive in retaliation (as is the case with the adobe package Branden mentioned a few weeks ago). Dude, the adobe packages got removed because of a security hole, not because of some retaliation or some being-obsolute scheme. At least, TTBOMK. No, i was not speaking about acrobat reader, but about the other package whose name i forgot, and which Branden mentioned here. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:47:16AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 09:48:38AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Well, i would argue that if debian devel are involved in the maintaining of the non-free packages and the non-free infrastructure, then it seems evident that even if you don't attach the debian name to it, it is still part of the debian project. That's a really slipperly slope here. What if Debian Developers in proprietary companies make non-free binary .deb packages for their companies products, would that still be part of the Debian project? What about other unofficial stuff, like .debs on people.debian.org, or backports at www.backports.org? Is that 'part of the debian project'? Where do you draw the line? Well, non-free stuff is evil, and having it packaged is a threat to free stuff in the long run, don't you think so ? I find your reasoning highly irrational. 'Who thinks that apt-get is part of Debian will believe non-free.org is part of Debian, too. Those who don't will also believe that debian/non-free is seperate from debian/main'. I don't believe this is true at all. Please show evidence that people think apt-get.org is part of the Debian project first, before you use this as a carte blanche. I have encountered people who thought so, or at least who didn't make official separation. Also, the non-free removal proponent are also subject to this misconception, citing the java packages as example of non-free package, altough it has been ages since we distributed it, well in any modern version at least, the 1.1 jdk in non-free doesn't really count, just as prove that nobody cared enough to have it purged or something. Yes, you have proposed making my life, as packager of a non-free package, which incidentally i need to do my debian work, more difficult, this diminishing my time i could otherwise dedicate to debian. If you can't cope with uploading stuff to non-free.org instead to ftp.debian.org, I can't help you. I really fail to see how this would be so difficult at all. Well, is there a non-free.org for me to upload it to ? I don't see evidence of such, and i also don't see one being created in a way which will not diminish the amount of ressources going to the debian project in the near future. What i object to is that somehow the non-free removal proponent expect me to set it up, and no, i don't have time for it. And if the remove non-free vote pass, i will much earlier negotiate with my upstream for them to distribute my packages than use a posible non-free.org archive, which i do believe is not a good thing for debian to support in the long run, and i say debian, as in the debian developers who are going to use ressource to make it happen. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 01:54:09PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:47:16AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: And believing that ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free is part of Debian seems to be quite common, That's because it's true. That directory is part of a service provided by the Debian project. This is an excellent reason to get the name off of the service. I want the name Debian to be associated with free software. I'm willing to vote for that. So, would you be opposed to have non-free stay on the debian infrastructure, and have some DNS magic mapping non-free.org to it, and this being the exclusive way of accessing this ? This would, i believe be a very costless way of achieving what you want, without excessive cost to our infrastructure. Sure, the problem would be in how the mirrors do handle this. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: Keep non-free
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:04:57AM +0100, Eduard Bloch wrote: #include hallo.h * MJ Ray [Sun, Mar 07 2004, 11:44:16PM]: hardware manufacturers (in the last instance) only. Do you think that they produce everything built in their devices? Do you really think that hardware manufacturers don't decide what to build into their devices? Of course they do, but they have different primary goals, eg. produce the hardware product in this century, make it good enough to sell enough of it. Or do you prefer hardware that is 10 times slower or incompatible to what 95% of the market uses, beeing 200% more expensive? Eduard. The real problem is the hardware manufacturers. The rest of the non-free stuff, we can write replacement for easily enough, but there is not yet a free software culture in the hardware or bios world, they would like to profit from the free software current, but don't want to give anything in return. As long as Linus do accept binary only driver modules this will not change, as some would argue that binary only drivers are a breach of the GPL. Furthermore, binary only drivers are a threat to the diversity of architectures that is one of the strength of debian, and entraps us in the Intel monopoly structure. Speak of IP is misplaced, would you not have hold the same discourse about software 10, 20 years ago ? And i don't see debian prominent in the free bios projects, nor taking an active role in the lobbying for free hardware. The rest of the stuff, just get ride of it, no problem we can replace it, the things i will most miss is probably a whole bunch of non-free documentation, and the lha unencoder, but i guess that if this later one really cause problems for me, i would go and reimplement it. I prefer working on debian-installer support though. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:24:25PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 12:04:50 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:39:43PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-06 10:20:44 + Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: elfutils was removed on the request of its maintainer on 9th December. elfutils is not an example of removal from non-free. It was in main. I filed bug #221761 after a debian-legal discussion pointed it out. And ? The fact that it previously was in non-free but is now in main doesn't count ? Was it? It's not now in main. The initial upload elfutils upload was to main in July 2003 (version 0.84-1). It was removed from main on 9th December (bug 221761). When was it in non-free? [...] The packages are not more actively removed, because nobody, including the remove non-free proponent, care enough about it. As far as I can tell, Andrew Suffield and others are working as much as they can on reducing non-free through analysing licences and explaining the DFSG in that context. I doubt you have any reason to accuse them of not caring enough. Yeah, they care only about licencing, and conflictive relationship with upstream, not about : 1) finding and strengthening free alternative. 2) having constructive discussion with upstream if relicencing is possible. 3) actually asking for removal of obsolet non-free stuff. If a non-free maintainer is MIA or doesn't care anymore, who do you think will ask for its removal ? And i am sure with all the time lost in this thread, at least one non-free software could have been fully reimplemented from scratch in a free way, don't you think ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 14:45]: I was promised that Debian would remain 100% free software. You want to break that promise? Who says so? Why would the keep of non-free somewhere (might it be nonfree.org or our pools) be a break of that promise? non-free is no part of Debian and never was. Keeping it somewhere doesn't change that. Or perhaps you could ratchet down the rhetoric, and stop accusing me of dishonesty and trying to control you and all the rest. Nor did Debian ever promise that whatever non-free packages you would want be supported by the infrastructure. Debian does not promise to any developer that their package will be carried, free or non-free. Now /you/ are getting rhetoric, because this isn't the point. So long, Alfie -- Aber der Aufwand Linux zu installieren und vim zu lernen ist *IMMER* geringer, als Outlook das Schreiben von vernünftigen Mails beizubringen. ;) -- Jens Benecke [2001-06-02] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 05:39:53PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-05 15:53:13 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah, but wasn't one of the argument of dropping non-free the fact that that would put pressure on upstreams of non-free packages to change their licence. [...] Not one of mine. I'm not sure what effect it has on that, but I suspect a net zero. Maybe someone else will discuss that with you. As you know, I think the best likely package benefit comes for those with unproblematic licences not hosted by Debian, but I see that you are careful to exclude that from your question. Err, i have difficulties parsing you here, could you clarify that for me ? I think that it may encourage improved support for non-Debian-hosted packages in general, including project-produced packages and backport projects. And ? Is this a good thing, or a negative effect on the global amount of non-free sfotware in general ? This would mean, not having a relative small, and negatively viewed non-free repository on the debian archive, but an officially recognized proliferation of third party non-free packages we have no control on. I seriously doubt that this would be a good thing. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On 2004-03-08 12:28:15 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah, they care only about licencing, and conflictive relationship with upstream, not about Just looking at very recent past, debian-legal contributors have had constructive discussions with people from the JasPer, Mozilla and Cryptlib projects and the Text Encoding Initiative. We've had poor exchanges with X-Oz and XFree86, but that's not entirely one-sided. A discussion with FSF is continuing with little way to judge the development at preset, but other discussions (not about FDL) are still pleasant and productive. And i am sure with all the time lost in this thread, at least one non-free software could have been fully reimplemented from scratch in a free way, don't you think ? Probably, but I type fast, so my emails don't lose much time. You challenge every single post, often with errors and wild assertions. Look at the start of this exchange: I pointed out that elfutils was removed from main, not non-free. Very short and there was no error in it. You replied with some bizarre (and incorrect AFAICT) statement about elfutils being in non-free and added random accusations about that showing how nobody cares enough about removing non-free. If you want people to stop correcting and challenging you, stop posting so many obvious errors and unjustified claims. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:20:55PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 05:39:53PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-05 15:53:13 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah, but wasn't one of the argument of dropping non-free the fact that that would put pressure on upstreams of non-free packages to change their licence. [...] Not one of mine. I'm not sure what effect it has on that, but I suspect a net zero. Maybe someone else will discuss that with you. I forget who said it first, but I believe it went: Having software in non-free encourages the authors to change their licenses The opposite is at least as likely [I don't think it has any real effect, either; I find both possibilities to be unlikely to the point of absurdity] Well, the example of the ocaml package showed that the first point is true. And i know what i speak from, i lived it first hand, as i took over the non-free ocaml package in 98, and have participated in gradually removing all burdens that were keeping it in non-free as time pased. And not always thanks to debian-legal, which wanted me to go to upstream about the QPLed emacs .el issue with the argument of : we should be polite to RMS. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:10:48PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 11:34:50AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: And more to the point, do you really think moving the non-free stuff out of the debian archive and onto a separate archive would be something more than a fiction to make you non-free removal advocate happy ? Do you really believe that the same people confunding debian/main with debian/non-free are not the same one who think that apt-get.org is part of debian also ? Honestly, I believe this problem is at least one order of magnitude smaller and less common. And what will happen when we will see a huge proliferation of semi-official third party repositories ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 09:41:29PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 02:37:34PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: It is not Debian's job to help you with everything in your life that you want to volunteer for. Debian has a purpose, and I seek to clarify what that purpose is. Its purpose is to create a first class free operating system, and support the users of that operating system. We currently do that by doing everything we can to support users needs; even if that means distributing non-free software. Those concepts are explained in both the social contract and the constitution, and aren't particularly ambiguous. I'm a little unclear on how a first class free operating system can be non-free. I guess that's the central problem here. Tell me again, what hardware are you running, and what licence does your BIOS have ? I seriously doubt it is free. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:58:25PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:33:56PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 01:57:35PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: A, yes ? And the fact that debian ressource would be used for setting this alternative archive up and maintaining those packages is not to be considered ? Debian ressource in the form of volunteer time, which is maybe the only asset debian really has ? Volunteer time is not owned by Debian. We have no control over volunteer time, and we cannot assign tasks to persons. But you are interfering by the time i should spend on things, in particular making it more difficult for me to maintain my non-free package ? A strange way of not interfering with my volunteer time. His point is that this time is not time you spend on Debian, but on some non-free packages that happen to be distributed by Debian right now. So, just as Debian can not set restrictions on what you do in your non-Debian time, you cannot set restrictions on how Debian should help you with your non-Debian activities. Sorry, but the time i spent on packaging non-free stuff, this time i clearly see as part of the time i devote to debian. Not only does it include the real packaging, which is but a small fraction of the global time i devote to debian, but also some convincing and discussion work i have with upstream to try to get the licence freed. And packaging a non-free package puts you in a strong position to have this discussion with upstream, and, as i can see in my case, has already proven successfull in one of the two non-free packages i have been involved with. Or do you seriously think i would be packaging ocaml in main today, if i had not taken over the maintainership of that non-free package back in 98 ? I would probably be a redhat or whatever user right now if that would have been the case. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 12:31:05 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 05:39:53PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I think that it may encourage improved support for non-Debian-hosted packages in general, including project-produced packages and backport projects. And ? Is this a good thing, or a negative effect on the global amount of non-free sfotware in general ? A good thing. It means that more software gets packaged for debian and probably more people would use debian. I don't really care about negative effects on non-free software in general in this case. I support the Suffield drop GR to improve Debian, not to harm non-free. This would mean, not having a relative small, and negatively viewed non-free repository on the debian archive, but an officially recognized proliferation of third party non-free packages we have no control on. I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Third party non-free (like j2* packages) already exist and I doubt they would grow as quickly as free ones. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:04:37AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:39:06PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: The main point is that i don't master the subtelties of the english language enough to clearly appreciate the degree of offensiveness which is meant by it. And given the degree of insult i have in the past received by the non-free removal supporters in the past, Branden and Assufield in the front of it, ^^^ Heh, now you're being offensive in a subtle way ;) Arg, sorry, i apologize for this. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:12:15PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: What i object to is that somehow the non-free removal proponent expect me to set it up, and no, i don't have time for it. You were repeatedly told that this is not expected of you. If you failed to notice that, I am glad to reiterate this for you now. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:14:13PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: So, would you be opposed to have non-free stay on the debian infrastructure, and have some DNS magic mapping non-free.org to it, and this being the exclusive way of accessing this ? This would, i believe be a very costless way of achieving what you want, without excessive cost to our infrastructure. Personally, I think this would be a good interim solution. Just look at how the GNU project handles this with savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nongnu.org. Of course, things are a bit different there, as nongnu.org is still about Free Software, but their aim is to distinguish between the official GNU project and the rest, just like we want to distinguish the official Debian project from non-free. OTOH, I put up this alternative (DNS and other magic) for discussion some months ago, and some people (aj, I believe) said it would be too difficult to implement cleanly, or at least not worth the effort. I'd be happy to know about the opposite, though, if anybody has a good insight into this. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:39:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Sorry, but the time i spent on packaging non-free stuff, this time i clearly see as part of the time i devote to debian. Not only does it include the real packaging, which is but a small fraction of the global time i devote to debian, but also some convincing and discussion work i have with upstream to try to get the licence freed. And packaging a non-free package puts you in a strong position to have this discussion with upstream, and, as i can see in my case, has already proven successfull in one of the two non-free packages i have been involved with. You are free to think so. I believe otherwise. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
Hi! Thanks, Andreas, for the Cc. Didn't mention that I am not subscribed but I am reading answers in the archives -- though they would be delayed then :) (no, its a real thanks this time, not sarcastic) * Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-08 11:32]: * Gerfried Fuchs ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 11:25]: Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. But that next step influences if I am for or against. If it isn't sure that the next step (moving it to nonfree.org instead of erasing it from earths surface completely) will be made I am fully *against* the GR. And I guess I am not the only one. This is a needed precondition for some of us, I am quite confident that I am not the only one. If the vote for removing non-free will result in having it nowhere I am quite sure that this would be a disservice for our users. No, I don't want answers like I don't like to work on non-free, they don't make any sense. As long as there are people who would like to do it for our users there should be the infrastructure for it somewhere. Btw., I wonder why the nongnu.org vs. gnu.org split wasn't mentioned. Yes, I know, they are both about Free Software. But if the split did work for them why shouldn't it work in here? Whats so bad about having nonfree.org hosting that data? In neither case non-free is removed for sarge, so there is enough time to get up a non-free.org if choice 1 is taken and a non-free.org is wanted. Without the hyphen, please. But the thing is: With all those heated discussions in here I don't think that it will happen if it isn't decided prior to this GR. My personal opinion, right, but I am not sure if I am the only one thinking along that lines... And both Choices have one in common: Settle that issue for the next time. I rather think that choice 2 (keep it) will have much less votes if it is asured that nonfree.org will be used. And thus when nonfree.org happens I would think the vote would go through with a vast majority for... So long, Alfie -- snowcrash ZZcd .. snowcrash oops -- #jutesack signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:29:38AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 10:56:30AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: * Debian Project Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 18:55]: [ ] Choice 1: Cease active support of non-free [3:1 majority needed] If one votes that non-free will be purged completely, from what I understand. Right? Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. It's both the same option. I strongly believe that we will have non-free.org up at about the same time we drop non-free from the Debian archive. However the GR does not require that, so nobody can depend on it. The answer to Gerfried's question is further discussion I believe. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:59:55PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Really? Do you like low quality packages? Do you think the equivalent of rpmfind.net (hurl!) would be an asset to Debian users? You can probably tell that I don't, and that's a big part of why I don't want non-free removed from ftp.debian.org yet. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 12:33:25 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And not always thanks to debian-legal, which wanted me to go to upstream about the QPLed emacs .el issue with the argument of : we should be polite to RMS. That is a gross misreporting of Brian Thomas Sniffen's advice to you, which was explained in some detail. Some -legal contributors still helped you despite your attacks on them (I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers), confusion between acts of different developers (the current tentative to remove non-free as a threat to upstream authors when BTS wrote he thought it better not to threaten upstream) and trying to provoke debian-legal into confrontations (This is debian-legal, not debian-please-stay-polite). You seemed to be trying to make debian-legal behave as your post today said they do, rather than how they really are. Remember that debian-legal is a mailing list of many developers and other contributors, not a single person. That thread starts at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200401/msg00088.html in case anyone wants to lose time seeing how Sven misleads -vote readers again. I didn't read it all, but I still remember it from the time. I didn't post in that thread: I don't want to lose so much time to Sven Luther. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:56:43PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Thomas, please tell me, what is the licencing situation of the bios you run ? And if your motherboard has some defect, are you able to look at the source code for the chipset, and modify it, or possibly make sure there is not some unwanted trojan included there ? Although it's not important I will point out that the chipset isn't software but rather an ASIC, and modifying it is a bit more involved than recompiling! It does actually have source code but it's no more reasonable to demand the source code for your chipset than for your Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor. But then you may think it's quite reasonable to demand the source code for both... Actually said source code would probably be quite useful from an educational POV. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 04:05:41PM +0100, Markus wrote: One last point: I have read that DD which also packages non-free programs think that if Debian drops non-free they would need more time for there non-free package and for the (maybe) new infrastructure. This is maybe true or not. But i think if you define the goal of Debian to create an 100% free operating system thats not a problem for Debian. Markus. If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. And do you volunteer to step up, and do the administration of the new non-free.org infrastructure, which many talk about as it already existed, but nobody has come forward and implemented without taking ressources away from the debian project. Also, i would be interested to know from you what your hardware configuration is, and tell me about the non-free software you actually use, or used. And also, i think you, as the other drop non-free proponent, forget completely about the work that accompanies a serious non-free packager, and which includes advocating and lobbying upstream to change to a free licence, which in my case has proven to be successfull in 50% of the non-free packages i have maintained. Finally, i would like to know what do you think about the policy currently followed by Linus Torvalds and the remainder of kernel worked concerning the binary driver modules, which maybe you or someone near you use. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 13:15:02 + Hamish Moffatt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:59:55PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Really? Do you like low quality packages? Do you think the equivalent of rpmfind.net (hurl!) would be an asset to Debian users? There's no causal link between rpmfind.net and poor packaging. I hope the Debian community can respond to the challenge by supporting QA programmes, rather than its current ostrich approach of pretending there is no packages but Debian. Even things like the Bugs package header are a step ahead of rpm, aren't they? You can probably tell that I don't, and that's a big part of why I don't want non-free removed from ftp.debian.org yet. Third party packages already exist, regardless of the GR. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:08:45PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. One (quite off-topic) question I'm curious about now for a long time: Why do you have an ADSL modem which needs a non-free driver in the first place? TTBOMK, there are quite a few alternatives available (although I have to admit that I don't have ADSL myself, and things might be different in France) Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:59:15PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:14:13PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: So, would you be opposed to have non-free stay on the debian infrastructure, and have some DNS magic mapping non-free.org to it, and this being the exclusive way of accessing this ? This would, i believe be a very costless way of achieving what you want, without excessive cost to our infrastructure. Personally, I think this would be a good interim solution. Just look at how the GNU project handles this with savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nongnu.org. Of course, things are a bit different there, as nongnu.org is still about Free Software, but their aim is to distinguish between the official GNU project and the rest, just like we want to distinguish the official Debian project from non-free. The main problem i see is in the debian mirror network, but i also fail to see how things will change if the drop non-free vote will pass, and the mirrors decide to mirror both debian/main and the non-free in a single apt source. All in all, i think that there is a bit of a lack of maturity about the remove non-free proposal. OTOH, I put up this alternative (DNS and other magic) for discussion some months ago, and some people (aj, I believe) said it would be too difficult to implement cleanly, or at least not worth the effort. I'd be happy to know about the opposite, though, if anybody has a good insight into this. Well, aj said it is not worth the effort. Now, i don't know if it would be more work than having a fully separate repository. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 13:20:56 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I don't really care about negative effects on non-free software in general in this case. I support the Suffield drop GR to improve Debian, not to harm non-free. You don't care about it, or you willingly close your eyes to it, in order to achieve the short term goal of having debian no more distribute the non-free section ? Yes, obviously. I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Third party non-free (like j2* packages) already exist and I doubt they would grow as quickly as free ones. What about binary-only hardware drivers ? They are drivers for hardware which have the bug of not being free software, but I think you knew that already. I wish you good luck to run advanced 3D graphics on powerpc hardware for example, especially on modern powerbooks. At present, I have no such need for that hardware. If you do, then I think you should help to fix that bug, instead of writing to us about how unfair it is that some of us don't want to support a bug of someone else's driver any more. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:44:48PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:12:15PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: What i object to is that somehow the non-free removal proponent expect me to set it up, and no, i don't have time for it. You were repeatedly told that this is not expected of you. If you failed to notice that, I am glad to reiterate this for you now. Well, show me the non-free.org infrastructure then. I have seen nothing such, and if the vote pass, i will have nowhere to upload my non-free packages, so altough many people have said that it is not up to me, the fact have proved the contrary. Also, i have some misgivings about the long term goals and the oportunity of having a non-free.org archive setup. I do believe that in order to achieve a short time victory, the non-free removal candidates are potentially setting us up for a long term drawback in our goal to achieve a fully free plateform, including all the vertical infrastructure, the kernel, the OS, the apps, but also the bios or firmware below, the hardware drivers and the actual hardware. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:15:57PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: All in all, i think that there is a bit of a lack of maturity about the remove non-free proposal. Could you please stop your accusations? At most, there is a lack of maturity in *this concrete* implementation proposal, perhaps connected to that fact that it is relatively new? Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:59:55PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 12:31:05 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 05:39:53PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I think that it may encourage improved support for non-Debian-hosted packages in general, including project-produced packages and backport projects. And ? Is this a good thing, or a negative effect on the global amount of non-free sfotware in general ? A good thing. It means that more software gets packaged for debian and probably more people would use debian. I don't really care about negative effects on non-free software in general in this case. I support the Suffield drop GR to improve Debian, not to harm non-free. You don't care about it, or you willingly close your eyes to it, in order to achieve the short term goal of having debian no more distribute the non-free section ? This would mean, not having a relative small, and negatively viewed non-free repository on the debian archive, but an officially recognized proliferation of third party non-free packages we have no control on. I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Third party non-free (like j2* packages) already exist and I doubt they would grow as quickly as free ones. What about binary-only hardware drivers ? I wish you good luck to run advanced 3D graphics on powerpc hardware for example, especially on modern powerbooks. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:21:47PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 12:33:25 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And not always thanks to debian-legal, which wanted me to go to upstream about the QPLed emacs .el issue with the argument of : we should be polite to RMS. That is a gross misreporting of Brian Thomas Sniffen's advice to you, Well, was not that what i was told ? which was explained in some detail. Some -legal contributors still helped you despite your attacks on them (I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers), confusion between acts This not a direct quote, i don't remember saying it exactly like this, but you have not seen Branden and Asufield cover me with mud (err, me trainer dans la boue in french, no idea how you say that in english) over the xfree86 issue on irc, maybe you even have, i don't remember, maybe you were part of the bullies that day. of different developers (the current tentative to remove non-free as a threat to upstream authors when BTS wrote he thought it better not BTS ? to threaten upstream) and trying to provoke debian-legal into confrontations (This is debian-legal, not debian-please-stay-polite). You seemed to be trying to make debian-legal behave as your post today said they do, rather than how they really are. Remember that debian-legal is a mailing list of many developers and other contributors, not a single person. Sorry, but i asked on advice for how to best present my case upstream, and was agressed in return. And seriously, but does a we should stay polite to RMS strike you as a serious argument you can bring to upstream when discussing this issue. And for the notice, i have discussed this issue with my upstream, without any help from debian-legal, and they have agreed to clarify the situation, it may even be the case in CVS, not sure, i have not checked. That thread starts at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200401/msg00088.html in case anyone wants to lose time seeing how Sven misleads -vote readers again. I didn't read it all, but I still remember it from the time. I didn't post in that thread: I don't want to lose so much time to Sven Luther. Yeah. Please go work on a free implementation of a package currently in non-free, and stop loosing our time on this. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:01:09PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:39:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Sorry, but the time i spent on packaging non-free stuff, this time i clearly see as part of the time i devote to debian. Not only does it include the real packaging, which is but a small fraction of the global time i devote to debian, but also some convincing and discussion work i have with upstream to try to get the licence freed. And packaging a non-free package puts you in a strong position to have this discussion with upstream, and, as i can see in my case, has already proven successfull in one of the two non-free packages i have been involved with. You are free to think so. I believe otherwise. Yeah, the difference is that i can draw my conclusion from my own experience of packaging a non-free package (ocaml) which has over the time become free, while you are only making wild suspisions. Have you ever been involved with non-free packages ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
* Sven Luther ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 14:40]: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:48:24PM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: * Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-08 11:32]: * Gerfried Fuchs ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 11:25]: Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. But that next step influences if I am for or against. If it isn't sure that the next step (moving it to nonfree.org instead of erasing it from earths surface completely) will be made I am fully *against* the GR. And I guess I am not the only one. This is a needed precondition for some of us, I am quite confident that I am not the only one. Just vote for keeping non-free then. Once non-free.org has been created, and has been proved to be a working replacement of non-free in the debian archive, meeting all the needs of the non-free maintainers and users, i don't see how our promise to keep non-free will stop us from moving to this new infrastructure. No. If you are not satisfied with either text, you can vote for further discussion. But if the keep non-free is the result of this vote, than _please_ don't discuss any more after that. It is decided than, and let's get back to our work after this GR. We have more important tasks than to have the same discussion again and again. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:37PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 12:09:11AM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: However the GR does not require that, so nobody can depend on it. As the implementation of an outside nonfree.org is not in the scope of the Debian project, the GR *cannot* require this. We will try to make sure it will happen though. We certainly need some people who help, so if you are interested, let me know. Michael, I know you are interested in making this happen, so i would know from you what time-ressources you are going to put into it, and if this time you spent could not have been better spent working on free software in debian, and in particular in trying to bring free alternatives of packages in non-free to the point where they might obsolet the non-free packages, and we could thus empty the non-free archive on the debian infrastructure in a more constructive way ? Also, i would like to know if you (or any other we you are refering to here) are in any way related to an exterior to debian organisation or company or whatever, which may have a vested interest in using or in any way being associated with this external non-free.org project. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 13:27:55 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:21:47PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 12:33:25 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: about the QPLed emacs .el issue with the argument of : we should be polite to RMS. That is a gross misreporting of Brian Thomas Sniffen's advice to you, Well, was not that what i was told ? [...] No, it's your (mis?)interpretation of it as far as I can tell. which was explained in some detail. Some -legal contributors still helped you despite your attacks on them (I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers), confusion between acts This not a direct quote, i don't remember saying it exactly like this, That was a direct quote from you in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200401/msg00104.html -- Oh, come on, let's have a good laugh together. I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers. I expect everything from debian, but politeness is not one of those. You did write it exactly like that, or someone spoofed your email. but you have not seen Branden and Asufield cover me with mud [...] over the xfree86 issue on irc, maybe you even have, i don't remember, maybe you were part of the bullies that day. I seldom IRC these days. The problems of IRC harassment are being discussed on -project now, I think. Sorry, but i asked on advice for how to best present my case upstream, and was agressed in return. And seriously, but does a we should stay polite to RMS strike you as a serious argument you can bring to upstream when discussing this issue. There was a lot more detail beyond that, but you seem to have become obsessed by that one element. You were actually told to suggest that upstream should give the copyright holder [RMS] generous [...] benefit of the doubt about their licence's implications. Please change the licence [...], because RMS may feel offended was an interpretation first posted by you, as far as I can tell. Maybe it's not a serious argument, but it's your invention rather than something written by another debian-legal contributor. Please go work on a free implementation of a package currently in non-free, and stop loosing our time on this. Since 1998, I have worked to replace non-free software with free equivalents, as well as developing new free software and helping to relicense things as free software. I am not the most prolific, but I do my part. I think I've earnt the option to challenge your misreporting. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 12:19:44AM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:56:43PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Thomas, please tell me, what is the licencing situation of the bios you run ? And if your motherboard has some defect, are you able to look at the source code for the chipset, and modify it, or possibly make sure there is not some unwanted trojan included there ? Although it's not important I will point out that the chipset isn't software but rather an ASIC, and modifying it is a bit more involved than recompiling! It does actually have source code but it's no more Yeah, sure, which is more reason for making sure we will not compromise ourself with vendors of binary-only drivers. reasonable to demand the source code for your chipset than for your Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor. But then you may think it's quite reasonable to demand the source code for both... And, don't you think the proprietary vendors did not use exactly this rethoric 10, 20 years ago ? Do you not think that this is exactly the same thing Microsoft would tell you today if you asked them about source code ? I do believe there are free processor alternatives out there, like the opensparc one for example. There is also a free hardware community out there, as well as free firmware people, but these are areas debian as whole, and the non-free proponent in particular, have largely been ignoring. Actually said source code would probably be quite useful from an educational POV. Yeah, among other. It may also be our only chance once the privacy-limiting DRM laws become stronger and more enforced. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:33:31PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Also, i would like to know if you (or any other we you are refering to here) are in any way related to an exterior to debian organisation or company or whatever, which may have a vested interest in using or in any way being associated with this external non-free.org project. I'm doing a master thesis in chemistry at the university, I'm not employed anywhere right now. I can't speak for any of the others, but I seriously doubt that 'we' are controlled by some other organisation or company. That said, I would welcome if some of the commercial 'based-on-Debian' companies like Xandros or Lindows would step in here and provide support in whatever way. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:35:35PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:15:57PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: All in all, i think that there is a bit of a lack of maturity about the remove non-free proposal. Could you please stop your accusations? At most, there is a lack of maturity in *this concrete* implementation proposal, perhaps connected to that fact that it is relatively new? Why ? The first proposal and rationale was to drop non-free in order to have some discussion stick to show the author of non-free software not willing to free the code. Then it was changed to just avoiding the user confusion, and saying that our users needs would be covered by an alternative non-free.org, as if that solved everything. There is no real study, nor care, about the real impact of the removal of the non-free section of the debian infrastructure, nor any reasonable engagement on the viability and initial setup of this supposed non-free.org archive. Like i said, show us the implementation, if it works and fills the need, we will move to it, without needing endless flamewars on debian-vote. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:37:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 13:20:56 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I don't really care about negative effects on non-free software in general in this case. I support the Suffield drop GR to improve Debian, not to harm non-free. You don't care about it, or you willingly close your eyes to it, in order to achieve the short term goal of having debian no more distribute the non-free section ? Yes, obviously. I want a proliferation of third-party free packages for debian. Third party non-free (like j2* packages) already exist and I doubt they would grow as quickly as free ones. What about binary-only hardware drivers ? They are drivers for hardware which have the bug of not being free software, but I think you knew that already. Yeah, and what do you plan to do to help fixing that ? And do you not think this is more important than some cosmetic change like the one that is proposed here. I wish you good luck to run advanced 3D graphics on powerpc hardware for example, especially on modern powerbooks. At present, I have no such need for that hardware. If you do, then I No, but i doubt you have access to the sourcecode of the bios you are running, and maybe it is even possible that your system is not void of non-free software. think you should help to fix that bug, instead of writing to us about how unfair it is that some of us don't want to support a bug of someone else's driver any more. Yes, i do, but there is nothing i can do about it. I have many times lobbyed ATI and others to get access to the specs which would allow to write free drivers for those, but without success, and i have come to the conclusion that nothing short of the full foss community moving together, or at least a large part thereof, there will be nothing changing. Even worse, the situation today is worse than it was one year ago, and there is no chance of improvement. And having a separate non-free.org archive will only give these people reason, and be a reversal for the proponent of non-free software. And i don't hear anyone proposing to drop non-free doing anything against that, so two weight two measures ? IT is not ok for debian to distribute non-free, but it is ok for debian to rely on non-free binary only third parties, some we are even involved with, to run on said hardware. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:29:31PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:08:45PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. One (quite off-topic) question I'm curious about now for a long time: Why do you have an ADSL modem which needs a non-free driver in the first Because it was cheap and i could afford it ? Because it promised linux support on the box ? Because upstreal promised me that once there is an alternative to the soft-ADSL library they use (and don't have the source code for) they would move for it, thus freeing the driver fully ? Because i didn't want to use a usb modem, which were also not free at that time, and prefer the confort of having a pci modem and no extraneous stuff cluttering my desk ? place? TTBOMK, there are quite a few alternatives available (although I have to admit that I don't have ADSL myself, and things might be different in France) Well, most especially, things were different when i bought it. For the same price i would buy a adsl modem/router combo today, altough it also don't comes with free software, so i am not entirely sure i would gain in the long run about the freedom of my installation. I envy Joeyh and his fully linux box in router-like size, altough i guess he also doesn't use ADSL with it. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 13:51:40 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:37:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: They are drivers for hardware which have the bug of not being free software, but I think you knew that already. Yeah, and what do you plan to do to help fixing that ? And do you not think this is more important than some cosmetic change like the one that is proposed here. I suggest those who want them fixed work on them. When I want them fixed, I will work on them eventually. My time is too limited to do much more: there are things I want more now that I'm not working on yet. Agressive challenges from the likes of you do not make me want to work on them, given your recent history. At present, I have no such need for that hardware. If you do, then I No, but i doubt you have access to the sourcecode of the bios you are running, and maybe it is even possible that your system is not void of non-free software. Possibly I have non-free software lurking on here, but debian's social contract means that any installed by debian is a bug. I do what I can and fix them ASAP. A failure to achieve the goal doesn't mean that I don't try. think you should help to fix that bug, instead of writing to us about how unfair it is that some of us don't want to support a bug of someone else's driver any more. Yes, i do, but there is nothing i can do about it. [...] Sorry, I don't believe that we're boxed in yet. Even meeting a brick wall just means the route became very steep or longer. You mention possible actions to fix it, which are hard, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying them. I think there are other possible ones, but you dismissed them previously. And having a separate non-free.org archive will only give these people reason, and be a reversal for the proponent of non-free software. I don't understand this. And i don't hear anyone proposing to drop non-free doing anything against that, so two weight two measures ? Maybe someone is, but there are none who reply to you any more? IT is not ok for debian to distribute non-free, but it is ok for debian to rely on non-free binary only third parties, some we are even involved with, to run on said hardware. I disagree. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:48:58PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote: * Sven Luther ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 14:40]: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:48:24PM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: * Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-08 11:32]: * Gerfried Fuchs ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 11:25]: Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. But that next step influences if I am for or against. If it isn't sure that the next step (moving it to nonfree.org instead of erasing it from earths surface completely) will be made I am fully *against* the GR. And I guess I am not the only one. This is a needed precondition for some of us, I am quite confident that I am not the only one. Just vote for keeping non-free then. Once non-free.org has been created, and has been proved to be a working replacement of non-free in the debian archive, meeting all the needs of the non-free maintainers and users, i don't see how our promise to keep non-free will stop us from moving to this new infrastructure. No. If you are not satisfied with either text, you can vote for further discussion. But if the keep non-free is the result of this vote, than _please_ don't discuss any more after that. It is decided than, and let's get back to our work after this GR. We have more important tasks than to have the same discussion again and again. Well, if we are going to distribute non-free in a nice way from a non-free.org based apt source instead of the current solution, i believe that this could be achieved seamlessly without need for long discussion and a vote. I guess everyone would vote for it if it did come to a vote, but this is the kind of technical decisions which don't need vote, since we are still providing non-free support to our users that need it, in a way that will also satisfy those that want to blind themselves to the reality. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 14:12:12 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:00:19PM +, MJ Ray wrote: You did write it exactly like that, or someone spoofed your email. Yeah, remember now. Do you want to see the full caps email from branden, where he all but told me i was not wanted in the debian project when i was a fresh NM back then ? [...] No, that's not relevant. As the saying here goes: Two wrongs do not make a right. I seldom IRC these days. The problems of IRC harassment are being discussed on -project now, I think. Sorry, no time for this mailing list [...] OK, let's leave that here: it's being looked at. upstream should give the copyright holder [RMS] generous [...] benefit of the doubt about their licence's implications. [...] yeah, well, ok, still, this is hardly an argument that would have been received favorably by upstream, who would probably feel offended that they, also being copyright holder of some code, might not get the same benefiot of the doubt. [...] Brian Thomas Sniffen (the BTS mentioned previously when I didn't think about the double sense) actually wrote that they should both be given that consideration if possible. Really, there is no excuse for you reporting your own wording of an already-corrected misunderstanding as if it were the consensual view of debian-legal. But let's stop here this OT thread. I retract that rant against debian-legal, and let's not speak about it again. OK. Please go work on a free implementation of a package currently in non-free, and stop loosing our time on this. [...] I am not the most prolific, but I do my part. I think I've earnt the option to challenge your misreporting. Ok, fine for you, why you don't do it now then ? I do. Replying to your emails is just something I do while waiting for other things to finish, so that your misreporting should not convince anyone to vote to keep non-free. Why aren't you working on fixing the buggy ADSL and 3D graphics drivers affecting you? ;-) -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:00:19PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 13:27:55 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:21:47PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 12:33:25 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: about the QPLed emacs .el issue with the argument of : we should be polite to RMS. That is a gross misreporting of Brian Thomas Sniffen's advice to you, Well, was not that what i was told ? [...] No, it's your (mis?)interpretation of it as far as I can tell. which was explained in some detail. Some -legal contributors still helped you despite your attacks on them (I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers), confusion between acts This not a direct quote, i don't remember saying it exactly like this, That was a direct quote from you in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200401/msg00104.html -- Oh, come on, let's have a good laugh together. I have not known a more rude bunch of people than the debian developers. I expect everything from debian, but politeness is not one of those. You did write it exactly like that, or someone spoofed your email. Yeah, remember now. Do you want to see the full caps email from branden, where he all but told me i was not wanted in the debian project when i was a fresh NM back then ? And i think this is true, i have never been so insulted in my live since i joined the debian project. But this is in no way an attack on -legal, as you tried to misinterpret it. but you have not seen Branden and Asufield cover me with mud [...] over the xfree86 issue on irc, maybe you even have, i don't remember, maybe you were part of the bullies that day. I seldom IRC these days. The problems of IRC harassment are being discussed on -project now, I think. Sorry, no time for this mailing list, already there are three mailing lists i have no time to really read, altough i am susbcribed to them (lkml, d-d, d-u-f). Sorry, but i asked on advice for how to best present my case upstream, and was agressed in return. And seriously, but does a we should stay polite to RMS strike you as a serious argument you can bring to upstream when discussing this issue. There was a lot more detail beyond that, but you seem to have become obsessed by that one element. You were actually told to suggest that upstream should give the copyright holder [RMS] generous [...] benefit of the doubt about their licence's implications. Please change the licence [...], because RMS may feel offended was an interpretation first posted by you, as far as I can tell. Maybe it's not a serious argument, but it's your invention rather than something written by another debian-legal contributor. yeah, well, ok, still, this is hardly an argument that would have been received favorably by upstream, who would probably feel offended that they, also being copyright holder of some code, might not get the same benefiot of the doubt. And as i well believe that they would be willing and have the qualification of writing an emacs replacement just to run said code, i didn't want to go to them with weak argumentation. But let's stop here this OT thread. I retract that rant against debian-legal, and let's not speak about it again. Please go work on a free implementation of a package currently in non-free, and stop loosing our time on this. Since 1998, I have worked to replace non-free software with free equivalents, as well as developing new free software and helping to relicense things as free software. I am not the most prolific, but I do my part. I think I've earnt the option to challenge your misreporting. Ok, fine for you, why you don't do it now then ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 14:18:15 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A, but you have no problem in having me do more work in order to maintain my non-free package, which is currently needed for the rest of my debian work. Thanks. Do we require debian developers to have ADSL now? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:42PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 13:51:40 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:37:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: They are drivers for hardware which have the bug of not being free software, but I think you knew that already. Yeah, and what do you plan to do to help fixing that ? And do you not think this is more important than some cosmetic change like the one that is proposed here. I suggest those who want them fixed work on them. When I want them fixed, I will work on them eventually. My time is too limited to do much more: there are things I want more now that I'm not working on yet. Agressive challenges from the likes of you do not make me want to work on them, given your recent history. A, but you have no problem in having me do more work in order to maintain my non-free package, which is currently needed for the rest of my debian work. Thanks. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:42PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Sorry, I don't believe that we're boxed in yet. Even meeting a brick wall just means the route became very steep or longer. You mention possible actions to fix it, which are hard, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying them. I think there are other possible ones, but you dismissed them previously. Hard and possibly illegal. And having a separate non-free.org archive will only give these people reason, and be a reversal for the proponent of non-free software. I don't understand this. They would say : why should i care about freing the code, since i can upload those binary only drivers to non-free.org, and all the users i care about will be able to use it, i have no intention to take care of a small minority who doesn't run x86. They clearly said that nothing below 150 000 units monthly would be worth of their notice. Currently we have non-free, but we clearly state that it is something to be shuned, and i guess most non-free maintainers are ashamed to work on non-free stuff, and wish nothing more than freeing said code, or being able to use a free alternative. At least those who trully believe in our SC and on all what debian stands for do. Now, if we have a officialy recognized and respected non-free.org, you see how this will change. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:41:20PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 14:24:13 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:42PM +, MJ Ray wrote: [...] I think there are other possible ones, but you dismissed them previously. Hard and possibly illegal. If you mean reverse-engineering the devices, I think even the currently-proposed EU enforcement directive about this doesn't make it illegal. http://www.ffii.org.uk/ip_enforce/ipred.html Ah, but i would be barred from entering the US forever after. They would say : why should i care about freing the code, since i can upload those binary only drivers to non-free.org [...] That seems little different to what they can say about debian.org today. Yeah, but at least the threat to remove their package from non-free would have some weight. Point taken about developer motivations, but it's odd to ignore external non-free existing already, but ask the project to act based And how much of those are you using, and how much of those to you trully trust in on production hardware ? on what might happen to external non-free. Should we vote to keep non-free because of some concept like keep your friends close and enemies closer? No, because i believe it does keep a communication line open to non-free upstream who could be amenable to changing their licencing, or considering free choices in the future, without making them used to rely on an external structure, and ignore us in the future. Sure, those whose upstream doesn't care, and where the maintainer doesn't see a hope or is no more interested in maintaining them, those packages should be removed without pity, but all packages should not be lumped in the same case. And then, there is currently packages in non-free who are more free than packages in main, so ... Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:32:45AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote: The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. In neither case non-free is removed for sarge, so there is enough time to get up a non-free.org if choice 1 is taken and a non-free.org is wanted. Huh? The next release of Debian will not be accompanied by a non-free section; there will be no more stable releases of the non-free section. The Debian project will cease active support of the non-free section. Clause 5 of the social contract is repealed. AFAIK sarge is the next release of Debian. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could. http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
* Anthony Towns ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 16:09]: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:32:45AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote: The GR is not about the next little step, but about the fundamental decision whether we want to keep non-free, or remove it soon. In neither case non-free is removed for sarge, so there is enough time to get up a non-free.org if choice 1 is taken and a non-free.org is wanted. Huh? The next release of Debian will not be accompanied by a non-free section; there will be no more stable releases of the non-free section. The Debian project will cease active support of the non-free section. Clause 5 of the social contract is repealed. AFAIK sarge is the next release of Debian. Well, if the RM team is a bit faster, they might be able to release sarge before the GR voting is finished and effective. ;) Of course, you're right. Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 03:46:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: And BTW, i was refering in me having to help setup non-free.org or some other third party archive in order to be able to distribute my packages, not to speak about BTS support and such. Come on, please. On the one hand, you seem to connect the removal of the non-free section with a view on your packages alone, without considering the bigger picture (you always talk about *your* packages, *your* experiences with upstream, etc.). On the other hand, you tell us that you will be unable to distribute *your* packages once non-free vanishes? man dpkg-scanpackages, it's really not that hard if it is about your packages alone. Limited free webspace is quite abundant these days. Naturally, if tomorrow a fully working non-free.org would be setup, it would be fine also, altough i have some misgiving about the oportunity to maintain an officialized non-free.org not under the debian project's control. You seem to change your mind on that on a daily basis. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:51:40PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: I have many times lobbyed ATI and others to get access to the specs which would allow to write free drivers for those, but without success, and i have come to the conclusion that nothing short of the full foss community moving together, or at least a large part thereof, there will be nothing changing. Note that Keith Packard seemed to be quite optimistic about better ATI support for X during his talk at FOSDEM. He did not give any details, though, IIRC. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 14:49:28 + Gerfried Fuchs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-08 13:37]: At present, I have no such need for that hardware. If you do, then I think you should help to fix that bug [...] Ah the old every person who has a problem is Alan Cox anyway so can write their own solutions argument. [...] No, the old everyone can do something to help argument. Notice I wrote help to fix. Actually, I think most people are able do most things, but the boundaries aren't clear, so it's not safe to take it too far. What does it hurt you in keeping non-free some part of our infrastructure? Actually, it does hurt me. Some clients got upset when I explained that my offer to support the Debian operating system distribution does not include non-free. But it's included with Debian! and so on. That's not my main motivation for supporting the Suffield drop GR, but you did ask. Who does force you to work on it? No-one, fortunately, but there are some interesting subtleties (which I think irrelevant now). -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 14:30:41 +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 04:05:41PM +0100, Markus wrote: One last point: I have read that DD which also packages non-free programs think that if Debian drops non-free they would need more time for there non-free package and for the (maybe) new infrastructure. This is maybe true or not. But i think if you define the goal of Debian to create an 100% free operating system thats not a problem for Debian. If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. Let me answere in two steps: 1. If you maintain the non-free ADSL driver, that means that there are some drivers and you create a Debian package for it. If there is no Debian package you, and all other people who use that modem, could still use the drivers and the modem. For example i don't really need a Debian package for the nvidia drivers, i can also download it from nvidia.com and install it like people does when they use other Distributions. That's a point who i have never understand in this discussion. Every one can install whatever he want on his system, even if Debian drops non-free the driver and all other programs will still be out there and you are free to install it on your system. The only question in my view is, if Debian will support this Software by using there resources, create Debian packages which are hosted on the Debian Server and promote this software with the Debian label? Or is the support enough if Debian gives everyone the informations to built, create and insert every software they want to there Debian System? 2. Before i would pay you many years to package the non-free driver i would give you one time 30EUR that you can buy a modem which were supported by free drivers. If i buy new hardware I'm looking that this hardware is supported by free software, if you don't look at these you can't make other people responsible for it. And do you volunteer to step up, and do the administration of the new non-free.org infrastructure, which many talk about as it already existed, but nobody has come forward and implemented without taking ressources away from the debian project. As i understand Free Software, things were created if someone are in need of it. So if you or other people need a place like non-free.org it's your job to create something. Why should people create for you (or other non-free maintainer) something what they self don't need? If some non-free maintainer or some dedicated Debian user decide that they want something like non-free.org than they will create it. If they think that's not necessary because they don't need non-free software or they can become there non-free programs or drivers also from somewhere else (e.g. direct from the hardware vendor) than they will not create some place. If a non-free.org takes the DD's some resources away than thats pity, but Debian can not tell people how many time they should spend for Debian and can't forbid them to invest some time in other activities outside from Debian. And if some DD's want to spend some time on non-free.org or something else and cut there time for Debian than thats their decision. Also, i would be interested to know from you what your hardware configuration is, and tell me about the non-free software you actually use, or used. I have normal hardware, ADSL modem which connects over Ethernet with the computer (= no special drivers needed), HP printer, AMD processor, nvidia graphic-cart. For the graphic-card i use the XFree drivers because i have no need for 3D support. If i would need 3D support i would by a new graphic-cart which works with free drivers (e.g. ati radeon). At the moment i have only software from Debian main installed, about 1 years before i had spim installed from non-free because i needed it for my study. But if there were no non-free or no Debian package for it i would have no problem, i would have downloaded it simply from their homepage. That's also what i said about this topic. Non-free software exists independent from Debians non-free. No one needs Debian to use this software, whether non-free exists or not everyone can use and install everything he wants on his Debian System. And also, i think you, as the other drop non-free proponent, forget completely about the work that accompanies a serious non-free packager, and which includes advocating and lobbying upstream to change to a free licence, which in my case has proven to be successfull in 50% of the non-free packages i have maintained. I have great respect from people who does this hard advocating and lobbying work. But does this work really needs non-free? Even if you don't create a non-free packages for an special non-free program, if you are interested in it you can ever talk with the
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 04:26:48PM +0100, David Weinehall wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 03:18:15PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:16:42PM +, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 13:51:40 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:37:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: They are drivers for hardware which have the bug of not being free software, but I think you knew that already. Yeah, and what do you plan to do to help fixing that ? And do you not think this is more important than some cosmetic change like the one that is proposed here. I suggest those who want them fixed work on them. When I want them fixed, I will work on them eventually. My time is too limited to do much more: there are things I want more now that I'm not working on yet. Agressive challenges from the likes of you do not make me want to work on them, given your recent history. A, but you have no problem in having me do more work in order to maintain my non-free package, which is currently needed for the rest of my debian work. Thanks. I'm moving out of my current apartment very soon, thus I have no more need of my ADSL-modem. This ADSL-modem (Zyxel Prestige 645MP) doesn't need any non-free driver (or indeed, any drivers at all). I'm willing to pay shipment for it and give it to you, if you in return promise to stop using your current ADSL-modem, drop support for the driver and request for removal (or at least do not opppose such a request from another DD) of the driver. That sounds nice. Now, what about all the other users of my drivers ? Among them at least one or two DDs ? Who could take over the package. Also, what about the chance that someone implements a replacement softADSL library in the near future, and the driver becoming fully free. And do you have the source for the firmware for that ADSL modem ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 04:10:21PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 03:46:51PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: And BTW, i was refering in me having to help setup non-free.org or some other third party archive in order to be able to distribute my packages, not to speak about BTS support and such. Come on, please. On the one hand, you seem to connect the removal of the non-free section with a view on your packages alone, without considering the bigger picture (you always talk about *your* packages, *your* experiences with upstream, etc.). On the other hand, you tell us that you will be unable to distribute *your* packages once non-free vanishes? Well, this is what the non-free removal proponent tell me i should do, is it not ? man dpkg-scanpackages, it's really not that hard if it is about your packages alone. Limited free webspace is quite abundant these days. A, yes, naturally. From my account on people.debian.org for example ? If the non-free removal is voted, i will probably ask upstream to distribute the source, would make more sense this way, and i guess they will do it. Still, it will be more work for me over the current status-quo, and you cannot deny it. And, i wonder how dpkg-scanpackages will allow me BTS support. Naturally, if tomorrow a fully working non-free.org would be setup, it would be fine also, altough i have some misgiving about the oportunity to maintain an officialized non-free.org not under the debian project's control. You seem to change your mind on that on a daily basis. No. If there is a full working replacement non-free.org archive available, then by all means let's move non-free to it, and forget about this whole vote. I still think that a non-free.org outside of debian's control is not a good thing in the long run, but we will see. And if it is under debian's control, how can you say that it doesn't waste debian ressources ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 04:24:07PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:51:40PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: I have many times lobbyed ATI and others to get access to the specs which would allow to write free drivers for those, but without success, and i have come to the conclusion that nothing short of the full foss community moving together, or at least a large part thereof, there will be nothing changing. Note that Keith Packard seemed to be quite optimistic about better ATI support for X during his talk at FOSDEM. He did not give any details, though, IIRC. Yeah, but was it with free drivers ? I somehow doubt this very much, since ATI is unwilling to give out specs, even to proprietary companies like Genesi or Xig, to cite only a few, so i seriously doubt that they would take it kindly if their IP is dissiminated everywhere in the form of XFree86/DRI source code. But let's hope for a better future. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On 2004-03-08 15:36:38 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 04:10:21PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: you will be unable to distribute *your* packages once non-free vanishes? Well, this is what the non-free removal proponent tell me i should do, is it not ? It's what some tell you should do now, yet you don't. Anyway, why do you invent views of your opponents? Surely you can find something to quote in amongst all the people with the opposite view to you? man dpkg-scanpackages, it's really not that hard if it is about your packages alone. Limited free webspace is quite abundant these days. A, yes, naturally. From my account on people.debian.org for example ? If the Suffield drop GR has passed, would non-free packages count as related to the project? And, i wonder how dpkg-scanpackages will allow me BTS support. ...by using the Origin and Bugs headers, and improving them until they work well for you. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:03:43AM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
You mean like the Origin tag that has been supported for a few years now?
Analogous, but different.
Origin is something which is a part of the package, not supplied at
retrieval time.
Maybe a proposed implementation (maybe not the greatest, but at least
somewhat concrete) would give you a better idea of what I'm thinking:
Modify dpkg-deb to run /var/lib/dpkg/faux-headers at unpack time.
The lines in the result of this script must match the regexp
^X-[A-Za-z0-9\-]+:
and are prepended to the control file which is obtained from the
package. (Note: I believe faux-headers should be run once per
invocation of dpkg-deb, not once per package on the command line.)
At build time, dpkg-deb automatically strips out any lines in
the control file which match that regexp.
Modify apt so that it provides the following environmental variables,
when running dpkg:
APT_DEB
APT_URI
APT_DISTRIBUTION
APT_COMPONENT
APT_DOWNLOAD_TIME
/var/lib/dpkg/faux-headers is an executable shell script, and a
config file:
#!/bin/sh
if set | grep ^APT_ /dev/null; then cat ___; fi
X-APT-DEB: ${APT_DEB-no}
X-APT-URI: ${APT_URI-local}
X-APT-Distribution: ${APT_DISTRIBUTION-none}
X-APT-Component: ${APT_COMPONENT-unknown}
X-APT-Download-Time: ${APT_DOWNLOAD_TIME-unknown}
___
date '+X-Unpack-Time: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
__
And, of course, debian's tools would have to be modified [and tested]
to work with this scheme.
Thanks,
--
Raul
--
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Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Em Mon, 8 Mar 2004 13:35:37 +0100, Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] escreveu: I'm a little unclear on how a first class free operating system can be non-free. I guess that's the central problem here. Tell me again, what hardware are you running, and what licence does your BIOS have ? I seriously doubt it is free. This argument is broken, because Debian is not distributing hardware or BIOS. Thomas' point still holds: distributing non-free does not really help us achieve our goals. Cheers, -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha http://people.debian.org/~kov Debian: http://www.debian.org * http://www.debian-br.org No deixe para amanh, o WML que voc pode traduzir hoje! http://debian-br.alioth.debian.org/?id=WebWML -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:58:11PM -0300, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote: Em Mon, 8 Mar 2004 14:42:01 +0100, Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] escreveu: like the opensparc one for example. There is also a free hardware community out there, as well as free firmware people, but these are areas debian as whole, and the non-free proponent in particular, have largely been ignoring. Indeed. We have been ignoring this kind of thing, but I would not say we should drop the 'remove non-free' thing just because we are not giving enough attention to free hardware. We should, instead, start trying to have the project get into contact with them and to stabilish some relationship with such projects to have free hardware used as test buildd's, for example, to help them debug stuff (I'm totally clueless on hardware stuff -- I have no idea if I'm talking shit here, but I guess you can get the point). I guess they run fine on emulation, but i doubt that will survive to be used as an auto builder. The main problem is that building hardware cost truckloads of money. That's a good thing for our next DPL to do: try to bring Debian closer to free hardware initiatives. This was already a theme of past elections i think. Nothing happened though. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Questions to the candidates
Em Mon, 8 Mar 2004 17:41:15 +0100, Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] escreveu: The main problem is that building hardware cost truckloads of money. That's a good thing for our next DPL to do: try to bring Debian closer to free hardware initiatives. This was already a theme of past elections i think. Nothing happened though. Maybe this is a good time to ask them what they plan, then. So these are my questions: Do you think Debian should work more pro-activelly in supporting free hardware initiatives? Do you think Debian money could be invested in such initiatives? What, if elected, you plan to do with respect to bringind Debian closer to said free hardware projects? Thanks, -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha http://people.debian.org/~kov Debian: http://www.debian.org * http://www.debian-br.org No deixe para amanh, o WML que voc pode traduzir hoje! http://debian-br.alioth.debian.org/?id=WebWML -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 04:28:13PM +0100, Markus wrote: On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 14:30:41 +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 04:05:41PM +0100, Markus wrote: One last point: I have read that DD which also packages non-free programs think that if Debian drops non-free they would need more time for there non-free package and for the (maybe) new infrastructure. This is maybe true or not. But i think if you define the goal of Debian to create an 100% free operating system thats not a problem for Debian. If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. Let me answere in two steps: 1. If you maintain the non-free ADSL driver, that means that there are some drivers and you create a Debian package for it. If there is no Debian package you, and all other people who use that modem, could still use the drivers and the modem. For example i don't really need a Debian package Yeah, but prior to me building the package, it was a total mess to build those drivers. And building the standalone module doesn't integrate well with kernel-package, and using non .debized stuff on a debian system is evil, and cause al way of problems. for the nvidia drivers, i can also download it from nvidia.com and install it like people does when they use other Distributions. We should all boycott nvidia, as they are the epythom of evilness in what consists of non-freeness of drivers. That's a point who i have never understand in this discussion. Every one can install whatever he want on his system, even if Debian drops non-free the driver and all other programs will still be out there and you are free It would be a regression over the current state of things. to install it on your system. The only question in my view is, if Debian will support this Software by using there resources, create Debian packages which are hosted on the Debian Server and promote this software with the Debian label? Or is the support enough if Debian gives everyone the informations to built, create and insert every software they want to there Debian System? Ah, let's move to running Gentoo, should we ? 2. Before i would pay you many years to package the non-free driver i would give you one time 30EUR that you can buy a modem which were supported by free ADSL modems are a wee bit more expensive though. And what about all the other users. drivers. If i buy new hardware I'm looking that this hardware is supported by free software, if you don't look at these you can't make other people responsible for it. So, what new graphic card will you buy ? There is no choice about this currently, and things are only getting worse. And do you volunteer to step up, and do the administration of the new non-free.org infrastructure, which many talk about as it already existed, but nobody has come forward and implemented without taking ressources away from the debian project. As i understand Free Software, things were created if someone are in need of it. So if you or other people need a place like non-free.org it's your job Yeah, but i am not in need of it, the current setup is just fine. to create something. Why should people create for you (or other non-free maintainer) something what they self don't need? Because they are wanting to take away from me something i use and which is working just fine, with very little overhead involved. If some non-free maintainer or some dedicated Debian user decide that they want something like non-free.org than they will create it. If they think that's not necessary because they don't need non-free software or they can become there non-free programs or drivers also from somewhere else (e.g. direct from the hardware vendor) than they will not create some place. If a non-free.org takes the DD's some resources away than thats pity, but Debian can not tell people how many time they should spend for Debian and can't forbid them to invest some time in other activities outside from Debian. And if some DD's want to spend some time on non-free.org or something else and cut there time for Debian than thats their decision. Well, the current non-free on the debian servers serves just fine. What is the problem with people don't wanting it to just remove the non-free from their apt sources, and let the rest of us continue using it ? Also, i would be interested to know from you what your hardware configuration is, and tell me about the non-free software you actually use, or used. I have normal hardware, ADSL modem which connects over Ethernet with the computer (= no special drivers needed), HP printer, AMD processor, nvidia graphic-cart. Ok, so no 3D graphics for you, and you actually gave money to the greatest enemy of free hardware drivers
Nonsensical arguments (was: Why Anthony Towns is wrong)
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 10:20:49PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Anthony Towns has been arguing that the non-free archive really *is* part of Debian, that while it isn't part of the Debian Distribution, it is obviously a part of the system as a whole. In my opinion, Debian is an adjective, not a noun. So there's an implicit or explicit noun associated with the word in phrases like part of Debian -- when it's implicit, you have to determine that noun from context. Example nouns include: archive base system cdrom developer free software guidelines infrastructure mailing lists main archive ftp mirror package private keys project sarge social contract This disregards the current text of the Social Contract section 5, which is very clear that the non-free archives are not part of the Debian system and that non-free software isn't a part of Debian. Near as I can tell, you have disregarded the basic principles of logic, starting with your subject line which doesn't present a logical argument but instead presents a personal attack. Also, you've seemingly ignored related provisions in paragraphs 1 and 4 (and, for that matter, 3). -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm a little unclear on how a first class free operating system can be non-free. I guess that's the central problem here. Tell me again, what hardware are you running, and what licence does your BIOS have ? I seriously doubt it is free. It's not free. It's also not part of Debian. See how nicely that works? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, but it could. There are at least two free bios implementation projects that i know of, openbios, and the other using the kernel as the bios. You seem to think my goal is to eradicate non-free software, or to never touch it, or something like that. You are incorrect, but this is typical: you guess, incorrectly, at my goals, and ignore my straightforward and direct statements of what my goals actually are. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This would mean, not having a relative small, and negatively viewed non-free repository on the debian archive, but an officially recognized proliferation of third party non-free packages we have no control on. If people want that, they can have it now. Having non-free in Debian does not prevent it from also existing elsewhere. Moreover, the whole point is to *not* have it be officially recognized. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:31:47AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This would mean, not having a relative small, and negatively viewed non-free repository on the debian archive, but an officially recognized proliferation of third party non-free packages we have no control on. If people want that, they can have it now. Having non-free in Debian does not prevent it from also existing elsewhere. Moreover, the whole point is to *not* have it be officially recognized. And you seriously thing that a non-free.org, being setup by debian people in the wake of the non-free removal vote, will not be considered as having official endorsement, especially given the opinion of at least two of the three DPL candidates on this issue ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, my position is that it'd make sense to remove non-free when there are only a handful of packages to be kept there, because it's likely none of them would be particularly interesting and the effort of keeping non-free in the archive wouldn't be justified. [foo] Ok. How many packages? Can you give us a test that we can objectively apply to detect this situation? Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:31:00AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven and Anthony seem to think it is part of Debian. A part of what Debian supports for its users, not a part of the Debian OS. You have a problem with that? -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
Jason Gunthorpe [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The role non-free plays and the distinction between the distribution and the project was a reflection of the compromise at the time between the people who wanted to produce a distribution and the people who wanted to persue a political goal of 100% free software. Right, it's a compromise. That's my point, and the problem is that the compromise is: You can distribute non-free packages, as long as you don't call them part of Debian. The second half of that has been nearly erased, and Anthony and Sven have said here that it's pointless and pedantic to insist on it. Well, it was a compromise, and if they can't keep their half of the bargain, it's broken down. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But i forgot, you only care about non-free should not be distributed from debian, not about really running on a fully free plateform, and this will only happen the day Debian is ready to stop any relation with non-free companies, which includes dropping support for nvidia, and clearly stating so on our web pages, but which also includes stopping accepting money from Oreilly, which sponsored our debconf 2003, while at the same time refusing to free the ocaml-books licence for example. Hardly true. Your dishonesty is appalling. Stop telling me what I believe and want, because you are simply wrong. You are, at best, a liar. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And you seriously thing that a non-free.org, being setup by debian people in the wake of the non-free removal vote, will not be considered as having official endorsement, especially given the opinion of at least two of the three DPL candidates on this issue ? Some people might mistakenly think it has. But we would have helped the problem. My goal is not to solve all problems, but two: I want to stop branding non-free software with Debian. I want to stop using Debian project resources for the non-free archive. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:31:00AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven and Anthony seem to think it is part of Debian. A part of what Debian supports for its users, not a part of the Debian OS. Many of those users then think it's part of the Debian OS. They speak of removing non-free from Debian. You have a problem with that? Yeah. Maintaining the compromise requires a great deal of care in speaking, and Sven is unable to exhibit that care and Anthony thinks it's beastly to insist on it. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:31:00AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven and Anthony seem to think it is part of Debian. Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A part of what Debian supports for its users, not a part of the Debian OS. On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 12:03:03PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Many of those users then think it's part of the Debian OS. They speak of removing non-free from Debian. Are you familiar with the concept of an ambiguous phrase? You have a problem with that? Yeah. Maintaining the compromise requires a great deal of care in speaking, and Sven is unable to exhibit that care and Anthony thinks it's beastly to insist on it. I don't see that you've been exercising such care. In particular, your rhetoric seems based on pretending that there is no ambiguity. Instead, of exercising care, I see you saying other stuff which has no place in a rational argument. For example, Your dishonesty is appalling. -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:49:07AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: No, the keep non-free alternative does not contain any provisions limiting future discussion. It is also at best a keep non-free for now option. None of the alternatives contain any provisions limiting future discussion. -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Tue, 2004-03-09 at 00:21, MJ Ray wrote: Remember that debian-legal is a mailing list of many developers and other contributors, not a single person. Well, actually, sometimes if you skip the posts of a single person (which can at times be more than every second new post), it does appear that your statement debian-legal is ... many developers is true. :) (Hmm, perhaps I need to learn about kill files, I assume they relate to this somehow.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
dishonesty
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG [EMAIL PROTECTED] [040308 20:57]: If people want that, they can have it now. Having non-free in Debian does not prevent it from also existing elsewhere. Moreover, the whole point is to *not* have it be officially recognized. And this is also the most absurd point about it. But perhaps I also just guess the wrong intentions into other people, as I guess other people's points might share my goals: To finaly allow people to have to cope with nothing but free software. Telling in the same message that Debian should make it hands dirty by supplying infrastructure for non-free while pushing away any argument for need with a get it elsewhere, is the cruel dishonesty denoting this whole non-free removal discussion. Having a non-free section is a shame. The shame that there are still people we could not help enough to work with only free software. That there are still people not beeing able to control what their computers do and beeing at propiatary software author's mercy. But closing our eyes against this shame and/or not accepting it, will not make this shame go away. It will only make it growing. MfG, Bernhard R. Link -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
On Tue, 2004-03-09 at 01:00, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-03-08 13:27:55 + Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And seriously, but does a we should stay polite to RMS strike you as a serious argument you can bring to upstream when discussing this issue. There was a lot more detail beyond that, but you seem to have become obsessed by that one element. Hmm, seems I was mistaken about sven being a bot. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 10:56:30AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: * Debian Project Secretary [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-03-07 18:55]: [ ] Choice 1: Cease active support of non-free [3:1 majority needed] If one votes that non-free will be purged completely, from what I understand. Right? Which option is: Keep it as long as it has been moved to nonfree.org (with infrastructure) and remove it then.? I guess many are missing this, and I just hope this wasn't forgotten. I guess its this: [ ] Choice 2: Re-affirm support for non-free And yet another GR once nonfree.org is up and running. Aren't we a happy bureocracy... You were free to propose an amendment during the discussion period, and either get it accepted by the proposer of one of the other ballot options, or get enough seconds to get it on the ballot next to the first two options. If none of the options that people came up with are acceptable to you, there's further discussion, as others have pointed out. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Are you familiar with the concept of an ambiguous phrase? On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 01:46:58PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sure, but the Social Contract wasn't designed to place non-free into an ambiguous relationship with Debian, but to spell out exactly what the relationship is. As I read it, it's clear: we will put non-free on our servers and support it a little, but it's not Debian. It's not a little Debian, it's not Debian-like, it's explicitly stated to be not Debian. That's one viable interpretation. It's also a fairly popular interpretation. It's certainly not the only viable interpretation. There is no text of the social contract which applies the word Debian to non-free under any description at all, but rather, serves to mention both only to make as clear as possible that non-free is not part of Debian, using those very words. I guess that's true if you don't think that we are Debian. If we are Debian, then the use of terms such as we or our used when describing our relationship to non-free fit that description. -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
If we are Debian, then the use of terms such as we or our used when describing our relationship to non-free fit that description. On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 02:02:40PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: No, look at what we do. We have created a non-free FTP area. I guess you're just intentionally ignoring what it's saying. Either that, or you don't understand the relationship between the word our and the word we. That area is in our archive. -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:46:42AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. How could the removal of non-free stop you from maintaining the driver? No more BTS ? no more download area. friendly, sven luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: General Resolution: Handling of the non-free section: proposedBallot
Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Are you familiar with the concept of an ambiguous phrase? Sure, but the Social Contract wasn't designed to place non-free into an ambiguous relationship with Debian, but to spell out exactly what the relationship is. As I read it, it's clear: we will put non-free on our servers and support it a little, but it's not Debian. It's not a little Debian, it's not Debian-like, it's explicitly stated to be not Debian. There is no text of the social contract which applies the word Debian to non-free under any description at all, but rather, serves to mention both only to make as clear as possible that non-free is not part of Debian, using those very words. Instead, of exercising care, I see you saying other stuff which has no place in a rational argument. For example, Your dishonesty is appalling. Sven has misrepresented me beyond the point of tolerance. He stopped having a rational argument at the point where he continued to tell me what I really want or what I think even after I had told him he was wrong. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: keep non-free proposal
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:58:27AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 01:40:18PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote: That's part of what this proposal is all about. When we've dropped non-free, it's just Debian, no need to differentiate between 'Debian', 'the Debian project', 'the Debian distribution' or 'the non-free component of the Debian distribution'. Except, none of the introduced proposals get rid of this issue. One of them hides the current most glaring instance of it, but that's not the same thing. Or maybe you don't consider the debian servers [and their contents] to be part of debian? What are you talking about? Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:49:07AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: No, the keep non-free alternative does not contain any provisions limiting future discussion. It is also at best a keep non-free for now option. None of the alternatives contain any provisions limiting future discussion. Yes, exactly. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: * Thomas Bushnell, BSG ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [040308 21:40]: Andreas Barth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No. If you are not satisfied with either text, you can vote for further discussion. But if the keep non-free is the result of this vote, than _please_ don't discuss any more after that. It is decided than, and let's get back to our work after this GR. No, the keep non-free alternative does not contain any provisions limiting future discussion. It is also at best a keep non-free for now option. It also does not contain any provision limiting future flaming by me to anyone who revives that discussion. It is also a please let us go back to work option. We have not be taken away from work by the present discussion, first, it's part of our work, and second, Debian is a volunteer organization. Nobody is obliged to be part of this discussion. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: drop or keep non-free - from users viewpoint
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 11:46:42AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If i am stopped from maintaining the driver for the ADSL modem that provides me access to the internet, and thus enables me to do my debian work, will you step in and pay me (and others who use the same modem) a new adsl modem that is supported by non-free software. How could the removal of non-free stop you from maintaining the driver? No more BTS ? no more download area. You could still maintain it; since your purpose is to have access to the internet through this modem, you would still be able to do that whether you were distributing the work to other people or not. And since there are plenty of good free bug-tracking systems out there (including the BTS), you will have the option of using those if they are important to you. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
