D.Goel (2003-05-14 23:48:31 -0400) : > _All I request is that you allow us users (who still consider them > free, and I bet, most of us do!) a way to continue to use them > easily while still keeping the rest of the "nonfree" world off my > debian box._
Read /usr/share/doc/debian/social-contract.txt, especially points 4. Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software and 5. Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards. If the Emacs docs do not meet our free-software standards (and it seems there is a consensus that they don't), they belong to a special section of our FTP servers, namely non-free. As such, they do not belong to Debian proper. Basically, you say you as an user do not consider these docs to be non-free, hence they should not belong to the non-free section. The problem is that the rules (guidelines, actually) for deciding what is free and what isn't do not emanate from the users but from our constitution and social contract. The three ways I can see out of this problem are: - convince users asking for non-free software to use the non-free section of Debian; sounds the most feasible, but we should never underestimate the power of users; - convince upstream authors of said docs to use a free license; should be doable in theory, but GNU people have shown great reluctancy to ever admit they do non-free stuff; - change our standards defining what free software means for us; long process, likely to take months of debating and end on no result because people who will eventually vote on it are Debian members, and they are probably members because they adhere to what Debian means, including the current DFSG. Roland. -- Roland Mas Qui trop embrasse rate son train.
