Re: Free Software criteria -- about "Software distributions"

[David Paleino]

Il giorno Mon, 1 Oct 2007 20:02:50 +0200
Davi Leal <address@hidden> ha scritto:

> 
> ...
> 
> Anyway with the current facts I personally propose the below skills 
> classification. Although we must wait the RMS reply:
> 
>   "Debian"             Non-Free
> 
>   "Debian GNU/Hurd"    Free
> 
>   "Debian GNU/Linux"   Non-Free

Ok, I don't know the "current facts", but I personally don't agree in
classifying Debian as Non-Free.
Take a look at the DFSGs (Debian Free Software Guidelines): they're stricter
even than FSF's statements. Consider, for example, that in Debian the GNU Free
Documentation License is considered a non-free license (because it permits the
existence of "invariant sections") [1].

If you refer to the non-free repositories, they're not part of the official
Debian distribution, they exist just as a favour to users which use non-free
software [2].


> Flames are always needed!  MJ, your flames are always helping the project to 
> improve! You were right, we should remove Debian from the example list.

Not for me, I'm totally against. Debian is, perhaps, the last real Free
Software distribution out there. Obviously besides gNewSense which, AFAIK, is
officially supported by FSF.

> Davi

Just my two cents,
David

[1] http://people.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml
[2] http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html (esp. #26)

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