Social Contract Amendment May Bump Sarge To 2005

An anonymous reader submits "Debian's Release Manager Anthony Towns announced that after the Grand Resolution to amend the Social Contract has been successful (it does not only apply to software any more), vital parts to modern Linux systems, such as important documentation, firmware needed for proper hardware support will have to be removed from the distribution before the next release. Moreover, the upcoming installer will need to be changed. He goes on to say that he does not expect this to happen by the end of this year which means that Sarge will not be released in 2004."

Comments

Re:Rather than whine, help - shame on me

[Morganth]

that's lend a hand, not help a hand...

and, in c, "app" should be "apt."

Don't do what I do. Preview your posts. grr.

Practical results

[Spazmania]

The practical result of this are:

1) The installer will include a "non-free" drivers disk. This will confuse folks new to debian dissuading them from using it, but existing debian users will find it just fine.

2) A variety of packages will split into free and non-free parts.

3) All but the 100 core zealots will run the non-free packages as a matter of course.

4) When one of the 100 core zealots complains about the lack of functionality in the non-free packages, they'll be invited to submit patches.

In other words, the practical result is the failure of the debian social contract. Oh well.