[Fsf-Debian] few arguments to FSF

[Karl Goetz]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2012, 22:36:07 EST, Dmitry Smirnov <onlyjob at member.fsf.org> wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 10 Aug 2012 19:23:41 Paul van der Vlis wrote:

> > > The above example demonstrate the situation when it is extremely
> > > difficult to avoid non-free software/driver.
> > 
> > Yes, but only because you bought wrong hardware ;-)
> 
> My bad, but such mistakes will be made again and again.
> 
> Another example: three years ago I started working for a company who
> already   bought two Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers for a new project. I was
> promoting   Debian to them and in that regards it was absolutely critical
> for Debian to   have Broadcom firmware necessary to bring onboard NICs to
> life.
> 
> Without such firmware in 'non-free' I would fail to do my job and
> ultimately   Debian would fail. This is a small price to pay for 

i feel i should point out you can download the firmware from the vendor website and drop it in to place. (Iirc badcom drivers required a tool to extract them though).

> > I don't think we need it *in Debian*. We need it, and we need good
> > quality, but it could also come from another good organization.
>   
> This is an organisational question which is not that important to me.
> It really depends on FSF point of view - if they would be more happy
> with us   still maintaining non-free under different governance so be it.
> However I   believe we need 'non-free', possibly with different
> regulations to accommodate   "good stuff" like documentation. Non-DFSG
> documentation is better to be a part   of the project.

Documentation can be viewed online, or downloaded as required.

> > I think we can get rid of contrib and non-free by moving it to
> > something else. Something we can trust. The same as we have now but
> > not under the name "Debian" anymore.
> 
> Then we would loose some of the control that we have over non-free. How
> would   we guarantee it won't become more evil?

'We' wouldn't. The governance of the other organisation would have to do that.

Thanks,
kk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fsf-collab-discuss/attachments/20120811/cd58dde8/attachment.html>