Debian Can Now Amend Social Contract, DFSG

An anonymous reader writes "The Debian Project, creators of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, has voted to allow amendments to their Social Contract and Free Software Guidelines, as long as the developers agree with a 3:1 majority. The full text of the various amendments can be found in the original call for votes. Debian developer and XFree86 packager Branden Robinson has already proposed an amendment to the Social Contract that removes the requirement to maintain an archive for non-free software or "contrib" software (free software that depends on non-free software to work). Debian could still maintain this archive, but would no longer be required to do so. The proposal also updates the Social Contract to clearly require all works in Debian to meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines, not just software, which had come up repeatedly in the discussions over the non-free "GNU Free Documentation Licence". Both of these updates have been under consideration for some time, but were waiting on the ratification of the amendment procedure. The Debian Project voted on this amendment using their modified Condorcet voting procedure, which allows voters to rank the choices in order of preference, eliminating the "lesser of two evils" effect common to simple majority voting."

Comments

You mean one of the strong points???

[i_r_sensitive]

Given, the stuff in the stable tree, and on down is woefully out of date.

However, this is one of the things that has allways appealed to me about Debian. I use Debian for precisely that reason.

I long ago satisfied myself that Debian did at the very least a sufficient job of vetting the programs in their distro. I think of it as delegating that imprtant job. So, to a great degree, I know I can build a Debian/stable and set up a cron job to apt-get update and apt-get upgrade and be reasonably sure I'm up to date.

If Debian were to change this aspect of their opertion I would need to reconsider using that distro for the jobs I do. Principally, I use Debian for machines inside the firewall which just need to work. I don't need bleeding edge software, nor do I need to mop up the resulting pools of blood.

I know a lot of folks who make the similar complaint about Debian, and my response has allways been the same. You have literally dozens of distro's to select from. If Debian isn't giving you what you want, find another distro. Of course this is selfish, Debian does exactly what I want it to do, and I really would hate for that to change.

Re:Just one more reason to stay away from Debian..

[Telex4]

Why should an idea "get old"? Surely the ideals behind Free Software, insofar as their ground assumptions remain true, are timeless? You either agree with them, or you don't.

What you mean to say is that you have grown tired of these ideals.

Personally, I still feel as strongly about the FS ideals as when I first read GNU's philosophy documents. If they didn't stick to these ideals, the whole fabric of the FS community would disintegrate.

I wonder how you can grow tired of them though, especially if you have woody installed. Do you not see that woody is a direct result of these ideals, that facilitate the development of a system that provides such freedoms, not only in the liberal sense, but also in terms of providing new opportunities to those who, in the 'real' world suffer inequal opportunities. If it weren't for the availability of a completely free system based upon open standards that is guaranteed to remain Free, the only way to ensure that digital media remain accessible would be to constantly legislate to make people use open formats, and of course every day we see why FS people are so right when companies implement more proprietary schemes that deny access.

A firm committment to FS ideals, and a management structure carefully scrutinised by a collection of computer scientists, philosophers, psychologists and whoever else looks after Debian is absolutely the best thing a distribution community could hope for.

Re:politics

[krmt]

You would wish that some distro would have its social contract be "To produce a great distribution with the latest software that is stable". Succinct, and what it should be all about.

Good luck. The latest software isn't stable. It's got lots of hidden bugs. That's what the testing process is for. Different programmers test to different degrees. Obviously the linux kernel is heavily tested, but what about all the little programs that come with Gnome?

And then once the software is in the hands of the distro makers, they have to package it properly. Now, believe it or not, but packaging something well is tough. It's like programming, so you have to shake the bugs out of that too over time.

I guess it comes down to a different definition of stable. If you think all software is stable right out of the gate because it runs, then you've got a different definition of stable than most Debian developers. If you want that stuff, there's a version of Debian you can track: it's called unstable (and you can even sprinkle in experimental, if you really have the faith).

I really don't understand the general Linux user's need to get the latest and greatest at all times. Most of us ran windows for years, and simply waited for Microsoft to say "Ok, it's ready, here you go" every two or more years before upgrading. Debian's release schedule isn't a whole lot different, but you can simply see what's going on behind the scenes, so people tend to get impatient. How quickly we forget.

Re:Who is the Debian "User"?

[Bruce Perens]

Debian lacks a target group and a common vision for how the Debian OS should work and interact with the user.

IMO this mission lies with the Debian derivative rather than with Debian. Like Libranet and Knoppix, for example.

Bruce