The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.

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Re: contrib/non-free policy



>>>>> "BP" == Bruce Perens <bruce@pixar.com> writes:

    BP: Sigh. Maybe this conversation belongs on the
    BP: "breaking-in-new-developers" mailing list. I have it so often.

    BP: I'm sorry if my tone is a bit harried.  I'm afraid I'm getting
    BP: exasperated with new developers who decide their first mission
    BP: is to change our free software policy. I'd prefer to see them
    BP: spend some time contributing to the project before they tilt
    BP: at this particular windmill.

I am sorry I've made you angry.  My English is rather bad and I
apologize if some my wording made unnecessary confusion.  I said
nothing about changing our policy, I was just speaking about what to
distribute on Debian CD, *not* as a part of the main distribution,
only as a contribution to users.  BTW, I agree people who spend most
time on the project have more right to talk to important topics.  But I
don't know why I couldn't tell my opinion, though my contribution to
the project is only little.  I really don't understand all the flames
and personal attacks inside the free software community.

    BP: It's the primary target. It's not the only one, but it's
    BP: primary.  We are not intending to be the most popular Linux
    BP: system, or even the third most popular, although we'd welcome
    BP: a commercial system derived from Debian that became that
    BP: popular.

I think it would be nice to have popular (not necessarily the most or
the third, but popular) non-commercial system.  Why?  It's much more
interesting to me to make things in the spirit of "users for users"
than "developers for developers".  I don't understand this: "Take a
look, we just become better because we removed non-Debian `contrib'
directory from our CD!"  What does it help to free software?  Do you
think many copyright owners of packages in contrib change their
licenses because of it?  Do you think one will write GNU Prolog,
because SWI Prolog can't be on Debian CD?  I don't.  And what does it
help to users?  They will be asking why package XXX is not in Debian.
Answer: It is supported, but we don't want include non-FSG SW on our
CD.  If you want to learn Prolog and you haven't access to ftp, you
shouldn't spent your $36 (in Czech Republic: $3 CD, $5 contribution to
Debian, $20 shipping, $8 payment to bank, all together more than 10%
of average month salary here).  You should buy commercial CD, you
idiot!  Really nice advertisement for free SW...

OK, may be this is not problem and there will be (quite different
thing than "can be") many CD manufactures looking through our ftp and
making their own images.  I don't know.  I just mentioned what I'm
afraid of.  If I'm mistaking, it's only good.

    :: I really don't know, why almost free programs couldn't be on
    :: Debian CDs.

    BP: Well, you should start by reading the "Social Contract" on our
    BP: web site.  Then, pick up a bit of our history.

Well, I think not distributing perfectly maintained and free
redistributable (but not satisfying FSG) Debian packages on CDs could
be considered being violation of point 5. of the Social Contract.
There is nothing said about Official Debian CD there and if the
decision is to distribute only Debian and not Debian very close stuff
(read "contrib"), then I apologize and forget this article completely.

Thanks.

Milan Zamazal


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