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Debian Prepares To Vote On Non-Free Software
DJFelix writes "Manoj Srivastava, Debian Project Secretary, has posted a proposed General Resolution regarding the handling of the non-free section of Debian. This is very important to me, as I am a Debian maintainer who only maintains non-free packages. If you are a Debian non-free maintainer or Debian non-free user who does not want to see the non-free section disappear from Debian, I highly suggest you get involved."
this is quite an important decision.
freedom vs. usability?
freedom vs. laziness?
the difference is strictly opinion, I suppose
personally, I hope it disappears, but I can definetly see how that would hurt some people.
They are not proposing to delete all non-free software off the debian servers. They are only proposing to not make it an option in the installer by default.
Since most anyone who uses debian is familiar with apt sources, it would be trivial to add another apt line in your sources.list to get your non-free software. (If you're not familiar with apt sources, you're probably running RedHat?)
Hmm.
Although everybody should have the choice of using non-free software, shouldn't it be distributed as an add-on instead of part of the base distro? Or am I missing something here?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Many (possibly most) of the programs in the "non-free" repository actually meet the FSF's definition of "semi-free" software. Basically, this is non-commercial-but-otherwise-free software, i.e., it comes with the rights to use, copy, modify, and redistribute, but not the right to sell. I don't think this sort of software should be part of the system (and indeed, the non-free repository is not part of Debian), but aside from that, I don't find it objectionable.
What I'd really like is to replace "non-free" with "semi-free", and only allow semi-free software in - but nobody has proposed that. Oh well.
New users will install base, and be disappointed when they see the programs they want are not in apt. They don't know a decision has been made to make it harder to search/install non-free software. They probably have never looked at sources.list
I think a better solution would be a warning by APT if you install a non-free package that your free distribution will be tainted by the non-free packages license. Like when you add non-free kernel modules to the kernel.
Voting begins on Sunday, March 7 at 23:59:59 UTC.
Voting ends on Sunday, March 21 at 23:59:59 UTC.
Link: http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_002
How to Vote: http://www.debian.org/vote/howto_vote
-- [mf] BM
The proposal is also to drop support for the non-free section. What, exactly, this entails is not completely clear to me (and I'm a Debian developer), but at the least, I think it means no guarantees of security updates or even bug fixes.
Also, the non-free repository is currently mentioned by the Debian Social Contract, which is part of the Debian Constitution, so it has to be there. This proposal removes it from the Social Contract, clearly opening the door for the repository to be removed entirely in the future. (Which may be just as well if there are no security updates.)
But if your public key isn't in the Debian keyring, this information will not be very useful to you.
Have a read of this page if you will be voting. :)
Pixels keep you awake!
As far as I can tell, only debian developers can vote, so what can a debian user do avoid this from being approved?
This is probably a horrible idea. I'm not a Debian developer, but I use it and enjoy the idea that I can add non-free to my sources. If non-free were to go away, I would probably not recommend Debian to a newcomer. I believe that Debian should support its users wishes(not the developers), and noone is forcing anyone to use non-free.
I use debian pretty much exclusivly now. While I do appreciate and enjoy other distros from time to time, debian is the distro with which I am most familiar, and most comfortable.
I'm presently running unstable, and yes I do have non-free packages installed. I do however very much encourage debian to dump non-free.
For those who fear they may be inconvinienced by the lack non-free need only look toward apt-get.org or other unofficial apt repositories. Or of course you can simply install non-free packages from source or binary form direct from the software creator.
If debian does drop non-free, I will continue to use debian, and I will still likely have non-free software on my system (nvidia-glx), though the inconvinience (if any) will encourage me to give free alternatives more attention.
hey, you forgot to put Gentoo on that list. And genitalia. I 3 genitalia.
oops... I mean, I <3 genitalia
what software are we actually talking about? Something vital or something that is added on like utilities?
New users will install base, and be disappointed when they see the programs they want are not in apt. They don't know a decision has been made to make it harder to search/install non-free software. They probably have never looked at sources.list
IIRC, non-free and contrib are not in sources.list by default.
I think a better solution would be a warning by APT if you install a non-free package that your free distribution will be tainted by the non-free packages license.
Since you already have to add non-free manually if you want it, that shouldn't be much of an issue. But if you want warnings, use "apt-get install vrms" and then run the "vrms" command.
There's no real reason for "tainting" the installation, since it's unlikely that non-free software would affect the system's stability or make other programs harder to debug (that's the reason for kernel tainting).
Debian has actually done this for a long time:
Package: vrms (1.7)
Virtual Richard M. Stallman
The vrms program will analyze the set of currently-installed packages on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and report all of the packages from the non-free tree which are currently installed.
The installer ASKED if you wanted to use non-free.
Frankly, if they remove that OPTION, I think I'll be switching to another distribution the next time I upgrade.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
No, they're just going to make it less easy. You can install whatever the hell you want.
I think that Debian can and should fill a very important role in the world of software and information technology and remain at the forefront of the free software movement and continue to push the envelope of freedom by leading forward strongly in the direction of complete freedom.
debian/RMS zealots are the worst enemies that linux has. the GPL and the open source movement may be the best thing that has happened to the IT industry since the invention of the personal computer, but a religious adherence to the notion that *all* software *must* be free as well as open source does linux more harm than good.
free software zealots are linux's greatest enemy, not microsoft. by marginalising itself further from the linux mainstream, debian is tacitly endorsing this religious fervour, to everyone's detriment. extremist measures never get you anywhere, just ask bin laden.
That makes a lot more sense.
You cunt!
Debian is a server-oriented distro, not a desktop one, so adjust your
expectations accordingly. Insert the
CD-ROM and run the installer and all you get is a kernel and single-user
mode. No hardware detection to speak of, and no X. You need to go and
find (in advance) all the drivers you need for the hardware (I'm unclear
about how to tell the installer that you have them, and where to put
them). No graphical install that I can find (not that that's a problem,
but the lack of hardware detection is a *big* minus). Once it's running
you can log in and apt-get everything else you need, but the process is
wholly manual, as is all the subsequent setup. There is no way I can
find of Debian leaving you with a fully functional working system and
an X login with all the toys installed like RH does.
Can anyone help with this?
Debian exists to give easy access to *free* software. Non-free is just an optional extra. The packages will still be accessible from non-standard apt sources, so don't sweat it! People who want to provide such sources can; people who want to use them can. Debian will never *prevent* people doing what they want, because it will be 100%, therefore modifiable, redistributable etc.
One possibly important point is that Debian cannot be the FSF-approved GNU/Linux (/whatever else) distro until it removes non-free.
On a side note, there are a few points where non-free software is by far the best available, or the only realistic alternative. These are the places where free software development can be really useful.
An example of a technical challenge that is really now maturing is free Java environments - classpath, kaffe etc are getting good enough to be viable on their own without non-free Sun stuff.
Many areas that need work are beyond mere hacking but require serious social/political work - like Nvidia drivers another poster talked about, and Flash plugins etc (similar issue - non-free plugins/kernel modules are a pain when ABI/API changes).
Anyway, back to topic - Debian is about user freedom. This include the freedom to add non-free software, at your own choice, but the core is about free software.
Posters recognized by their sig,
Which is a rather bad name for the program as Debian and RMS disagree on what should be in non-free.
The view any computer user should take is to use the best software for the job, not is this software 'free' by some set of standards. Debian are producing a product for users and should take the user's needs into consideration not petty politics which could have an adverse effect on their users.
;-)
This will also cause problems with a central part of the system, the man pages. The upstream package now contains non-free (by Debian standards) POSIX man pages so the man-pages package may have to be moved to non-free or split with part going into non-free.
And the clinching argument against this move is the loss of rogue from the distribution as it is packaged in bsdgames-nonfree. Every Unix systme should contain a copy of Rogue so hours can be whiled away searching for the amilet of yendor
The problem is that "freedom" isn't always the same for every geographical region. This is especially true when it comes to patent-protected technologies, since software patents are not univerally recognized.
But Debian lumps everything into one of two categories. Free, or Non-Free. If there's any *portion* that's Non-Free, they treat the whole thing as Non-Free.
A good example would be the GIMP non-free section, which contains the ability to write GIF files. The LZW patent has expired in the U.S., but since it persists in other parts of the world, Debian continues to treat it as Non-Free.
There are other examples, but this was just one off the top of my head. So even though I'm using software that is Free (as in freedom) *for me*, I have to be inconvenienced over someone else's holy war?
No thanks. If you don't like non-free, don't use it. Leave it alone for the rest of us.
...since debian users never reinstall, they just apt-get dist upgrade!
(You did mean reinstall not upgrade right? I upgrade my Debian unstable system almost daily but I haven't reinstalled in years.)