As a Debian developer, here is my take on the resolution. These are my personal opinions and don't represent the project in any official way.
If the resolution is adopted the "non-free" section will not be removed until the release of "woody", which could be a year from now. The rationale behind this resolution (as stated by its author) is that free alternatives to the major components of the "non-free" section have progressed to the point (or rather will have progressed to the point by the time the resolution goes into effect) that "non-free" is no longer necessary. I shall avoid debating the validity of this claim. Instead, I reject this rationale because it does not apply to everything in the "non-free" section.
Debian has a very specific definition of what it considers to be free, called the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). (Your own personal definition of what is free may differ from this, but that is irrelevant.) Packages with licenses that do not conform to this definition are consigned to the "non-free" section and are not considered part of the Official Debian distribution proper. Nevertheless, we currently support this software with our ftp sites and our bug tracking system.
Keep in mind that "non-free" is not equivalent to closed source, proprietary, commercial, etc. A piece of software may be consigned to "non-free" simply because it does not allow its sources to be modified and redistributed, it may not be used for commercial use, it cannot be distributed in binary form, or other such restrictions. These are hardly the type of licenses that spring to mind when someone mentions a non-free license.
As long as I can remember (and I have been with the project for a long time), the necessary criteria for distributing a package on Debian's ftp server have been the following:
(1) Is someone willing to maintain the package?
(2) Can we legally distribute the software from our ftp site?
I still think that these are the best criteria.
The original intent of the Debian project in 1993 was to build a quality non-commercial distribution of Linux, and the project's most important priority was its users. The free software zealotry came later. I find it ironic that if this resolution passes (which I doubt it will), software will be excluded from being distributed by Debian (whose original goal was to be a non-commercial distribution) simply because its license prohibits commercial use.
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As a Debian developer, here is my take on the resolution. These are my personal opinions and don't represent the project in any official way.
If the resolution is adopted the "non-free" section will not be removed until the release of "woody", which could be a year from now. The rationale behind this resolution (as stated by its author) is that free alternatives to the major components of the "non-free" section have progressed to the point (or rather will have progressed to the point by the time the resolution goes into effect) that "non-free" is no longer necessary. I shall avoid debating the validity of this claim. Instead, I reject this rationale because it does not apply to everything in the "non-free" section.
Debian has a very specific definition of what it considers to be free, called the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). (Your own personal definition of what is free may differ from this, but that is irrelevant.) Packages with licenses that do not conform to this definition are consigned to the "non-free" section and are not considered part of the Official Debian distribution proper. Nevertheless, we currently support this software with our ftp sites and our bug tracking system.
Keep in mind that "non-free" is not equivalent to closed source, proprietary, commercial, etc. A piece of software may be consigned to "non-free" simply because it does not allow its sources to be modified and redistributed, it may not be used for commercial use, it cannot be distributed in binary form, or other such restrictions. These are hardly the type of licenses that spring to mind when someone mentions a non-free license.
As long as I can remember (and I have been with the project for a long time), the necessary criteria for distributing a package on Debian's ftp server have been the following:
(1) Is someone willing to maintain the package?
(2) Can we legally distribute the software from our ftp site?
I still think that these are the best criteria.
The original intent of the Debian project in 1993 was to build a quality non-commercial distribution of Linux, and the project's most important priority was its users. The free software zealotry came later. I find it ironic that if this resolution passes (which I doubt it will), software will be excluded from being distributed by Debian (whose original goal was to be a non-commercial distribution) simply because its license prohibits commercial use.
Think about that.
- Brian Mays