Package: debian-faq Version: 5.0.2 Severity: normal X-Debbugs-Cc: spi-gene...@lists.spi-inc.org X-Debbugs-Cc: 721...@bugs.debian.org
Section 13.3 "How can I contribute financially to the Debian project?" has several issues. As we already have a page on donations ( http://www.debian.org/donations ), I recommend these are addressed simply by making this section a redirection as direct as possible to the website. As discussed in #721207, there are more issues in section 13, and my preferred solution would actually be to remove all subsections and just redirect to 2 or 3 pages from www.debian.org (we don't have a single perfect page yet, but that may happen faster if we stop duplicating the information). The issues are of various importance. 1. The descriptions of SPI and FSF are pretty dated. 1. I wouldn't call Emacs one of Debian's most important software components in 2013. 2. As for the SPI bit, it seems to be trying to justify SPI's existence. Nowadays, the FSF doesn't have the relevance it had when this paragraph was written. We don't need to get users who simply want to donate into politics. 2. The FSF didn't /invent/ the GNU project, they initiated it. 3. We're asking to donate to the FSF, which does not /necessarily/ contribute to Debian. FSF also develops non-free software. I really don't see how this is warranted when people can directly donate to Debian. If some want to keep this, the project should be consulted. 4. Rather than saying click here, we're asking contributors to first make a non-trivial choice, since we don't give them any guidance on which option they should choose. It's not like there's a risk that they do a /bad/ choice; donating to SPI is not twice as beneficial to Debian as donating to the FSF. But the section asks them to spend time making a decision. This is certainly not just reducing donations to SPI, but reducing the total donations (SPI+FSF) made by readers. If we think donating to the FSF is the best way to help Debian, then we can transfer money to the FSF anyway. 5. We don't explain how readers should donate to SPI. -- Filipus Klutiero http://www.philippecloutier.com
