From "we should only use DFSG software" we went to "we should only ship bytes that are DFSG compliant" and now the fanatics went as far as to suggest that only "free" hardware should be really supported and that telling users to load non-existing firmware from unavailable sources during a non-existing step in the debian installer process is acceptable. :-(
Soon we will see post claiming it is "easy" to create a completely new architecture with FPA's and that we should only use that. I have seen this all before in the "LispOS" groups that always seem to degrade into "we should design a scheme/lisp/foo system from the gate up!". The nutters then leave the group, never to be seen again. The bad thing is however that the sane people also left the group, to continue working on attainable goals. I hope Debian can resist so long...
My Common Lisp and Debian blog. For more off topic rants and stuff please see my livejournal blog.
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2 comments:
First of all, I don't believe anyone has seriously suggested that Debian should only support Free Hardware, nor that we need to create our own architecture; if they have, you might consider pointing towards such a post in the list archives, so that we may all point and laugh. :) Second, the Debian project has always had a policy of "we should only ship bytes that are DFSG-Free"; we just haven't been very good about actually following that policy. (See for example Bruce Perens' notes that the DFSG was always intended to apply to "everything on the Debian CDs". Third, it is perfectly reasonable to load firmware from within the Debian installer, but that support isn't magically going to appear, so people interested in supporting hardware that requires non-free firmware should consider adding such support; I see no difference between that and "I want to install over a Broadcomm wireless card; please support installations that require ndiswrapper and a proprietary Windows driver.".
Finally, I don't see why trying to actually meet the stated goals of our distribution (namely "Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software" and "we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software") makes someone a fanatic; at the very least, such a person is no more a fanatic than anyone who believes in Free Software for the sake of Freedom. Debian is, by design, a Free Software operating system. We could have decided (and still could decide) to change that, to compromise our principles for the sake of such reasonable goals as "support more hardware", "get more users", or "become more popular". Most other GNU/Linux distributions include some proprietary software *in the base system* (let alone various add-on packages), in quantities ranging from incidental to obscene. We have chosen to clearly segregate such software; it is notable that we have also chosen to still supply such software, as well as other Free Software which depends on proprietary software, as a compromise for those of our users who choose to use it.
The Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines are a boundary, as are the OSD, and the FSF's psuedo-definitions and license lists. New licenses and licensors will always attempt to test that boundary, and try to get away with anything and everything they possibly can, for the sake of goals ranging from spreading the word on Free Software to making more money. We should not be so permissive that we allow the boundary to steadily expand to encompass more and more restrictions on Freedom.
I agree, but you wrote "software". 100% free software is what I want. Expanding this to documentation was a stretch and now to firmware is a bridge too far for me.
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