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: There are _TWO_ discussions here

> > Would it be very difficult to you as an X maintainer release compressed
> > fonts packages into contrib? 
> 
> Yes, for obscure technical reasons, it would be difficult for *me* to
> release them.  However, like I said, it's so easy, *you* write the
> script.  It would probably be a lot easier for someone other than me
> to put those fonts up, and you even estimated 5 minutes to write the
> script... (It's funny, an argument like this is the reason I wrote the
> gzip support in the first place.  Many free software arguments can be
> ended by someone actually writing some code...)

I thought that just releasing compressed font packages into contrib
would be a better solution for the users, but it would be difficult for me
for obvious technical reasons - 28.8K connection, 486 computer, limited
disk space. Well, probably I end up releasing tiny converter package
into contrib. 

> 
> > Would it break the Free Software World?
> 
> No... it is, however, bending over backwards to cater to *inferior*
> propietary solutions.  Let them can catch up.  (The users, after all,
> will be better off if the commercial X vendors *do* start providing
> gzip support...)

Well, they will catch up. You should also note that commercial software
is much less mobile then free software. One year old version of free
software is usually considered obsolete while the user who bought
some commercial stuff would not expect to have to upgrade it that often
(it costs money, you know). 

> 
> > Would it make Debian less respectable distribution?
> 
> Maybe, maybe not.  The exact wording in the social contract is:
> 
> : We will
> : support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but we
> : will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software.
> 
> Part 5 "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software" also applies,
> but in particular:
> : To support these goals, we will provide an
> : integrated system of high-quality, 100% free software
> 
> (Note that it's the Social Contract here, *not* the DFSG, that is
> relevant.)   I'm certainly *far* more interested in the "integrated
> system" part than the "non-free software" part -- after all, strictly
> speaking, I *can't* support someone using non-free software that *I
> don't even have* much less have the ability to fix.

I don't use commercial x-server either  (though use Motif), but in this
particular case I thought that you _could_ support your users.
(OK, you have your obscure technical reasons, that's another story).

(Franckly, I didn't get what you tried to deduce from those citations)
> 
> > I am sure that substantial part of Debian users (and developers) uses some
> > form of commercial software: Motif, Applixware, WP, Accel-X, Metro-X,
> 
> I am sure that you are *guessing* at this; just because they exist
> doesn't mean they're widely used. (If they were, I'd have gotten far
> more bug reports about gzip'ed fonts; I think I've had 2, or maybe
> 3...)  Also, I certainly don't use any of them, and recommend against
> them, recommending free alternatives in most cases.

Sometimes we don't have free alternatives. (Like in case of unsupported
by XFree86 video card, lesstif being FAR from usable, etc.)

> The more proprietary software that appears on the market without free
> alternatives, the less *relevant* the freedom a DFSG-system provides
> becomes.  

Maybe, but ignoring the existence of proprietary software will make 
DFSG-system even less relevant.

> 
> Hmm, it's pretty clear we're on opposite poles on this; we may just
> have to agree to disagree, especially if you go write the script to
> solve *your* problem...
> 
As I already mentioned, it is not *my* problem. 
I agree to disagree anyway :)

Alex Y.

-- 
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(     (o___           +-------------------------------------------+
 |      _ 7           |            Alexander Yukhimets            |
  \    (")            |       http://pages.nyu.edu/~aqy6633/      |
  /     \ \           +-------------------------------------------+


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