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Re: There are _TWO_ discussions here

On Wed, 30 Jul 1997, Bdale Garbee wrote:

> In article <Pine.LNX.3.96.970730074859.1096A-100000@dwarf.polaris.net> you wrote:
> 
> : If we
> : are talking about packages that provide no source, these packages probably
> : have no distribution restrictions and could go on my CD in any case.
> 
> Yes.  I believe there is real, practical value in maintaining the
> separation of  
> 
> 	main		DFSG compliant
> 
> 	contrib		not DFSG compliant, *or* orphaned, or otherwise less
> 			supported... but still freely redistributable
> 
> 	non-free	not freely redistributable

There is _no_ practical value. If you keep it that way, 

    1. The official CD will _not_ include contrib anymore

    2. The CD manufacturers will have to check "contrib" for licenses
       themselves, since the maintainers don't know what's
       `freely-distributable'.

On the other hand, if we change this into:

 	main		DFSG compliant, consistent
 
 	contrib		DFSG compliant
 
 	non-free	not DFSG compliant

Policy will be a lot simplier and we'll get these advantages:

    1.  The official CD will contain contrib

    2.  The CD manufacturers will _not_ have to check "contrib".

> I haven't seen a proposal that offers any good reason for more than three
> areas.  I disagree with the assertion that contrib and non-free are both 
> second-class citizens and can be lumped together with impunity... 

Noone here suggested more than three areas. We are suggesting to do a
better seperation of "contrib" and "non-free". 

Currently, DFSG and non-DFSG packages are "lumped together" in contrib.
This is _not_ fair and surely against our goals. The Debian Project wants
to support free software and wants the programmers to use DFSG compliant
licenses for their programs. If we mix these packages in one area
(currently contrib) this is unfair.

> Even after all the discussion, I still firmly believe that this
> "problem" has come about because some of "us" find the above
> distinctions confusing, and think the right way to solve this is change
> things that work and are practical rather than learning why they are the
> way they are.

I have no problem with understanding the current distinction between
contrib and non-free. (I am a Debian CD manufacturer, so I know quite well
what I'm allowed to ship and what not.) 

But the current distinction is to complicated for the average maintainer
(that's why so many packages are in the wrong category) and it's against
our goals (see above).
 
> I have *no doubt* that there are some mis-filed packages.  Why don't we
> just treat these as what they are, packaging and distribution bugs, and
> fix them?

These mis-filed packages will appear again.

> I am willing to concede that in the wake of the DFSG going public, that
> we have changed the Debian "default definition" of the word "free", such
> that the directory name 'non-free' is even less optimal than it once
> was.  Is this really worth all this chaos?  A rose by any other name... 

This discussion would be less chaos if all participants would better check
out their arguments before reraising old discussions again.

> I remain completely unconvinced that we should change the definitions
> of the directory trees.
> 
> : And others are arguing that contrib would equal free if it weren't for
> : these dependency issues, that contrib is mostly DFSG compliant and can be
> : made so by removing several packages. It is this contention that I have a
> : problem with.
> 
> I agree with Dale.  The whole point of 'contrib' was to have a place for 
> things that are freely redistributable but didn't meet the DFSG... even though
> we didn't have a DFSG in writing, the core group of original developers had 
> already internalized the DFSG, and used its criteria to decide what could and 
> should go in the main distribution... 

The problem is: what is `freely redistributable'? There is currently no
good definition for this--and it's impracticle to define this too. 


Thanks,

Chris

--                 Christian Schwarz
                    schwarz@monet.m.isar.de, schwarz@schwarz-online.com,
Don't know Perl?     schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
      
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