[clue-tech] The latest Debian feud - worth a read

[Nate Duehr]

On Dec 30, 2008, at 8:42 PM, Collins Richey wrote:

> http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/12/28/debian-philosophy-and-people/
>
> My favorite of the responses is the following:
>
> "Even in 1997, when Social Contract was first drafted, the Linux
> Kernel contained non-free Firmware. Yet back then the Linux Kernel was
> allowed to be in main, and not relegated to the "non-free" section.
> What has changed since then? My contention is a much larger collection
> of wild-eyed zealots who are more interested in delaying Lenny for the
> sake of being Politically Correct is responsible for the past month's
> rather divisive discussion — that, plus the fact the Social Contract
> was badly flawed from the beginning, since it made statements that
> were never true — how can Debian "remain" 100% free software when it
> was never 100% free software in the first place? The kernel has always
> had binary-only firmware blobs…."

I won't give away who, since I respect his friendship, but I forwarded  
this to a VERY long time Debian leader, and asked his opinion.

He said there was nothing new about it, it's been debated as far back  
as he can remember, all the way back to when binary driver blobs first  
hit the Kernel.   He agreed that there's non-free code in the kernel  
and has been for a very long time, by the definition of non-free.

I asked him because I was curious if he had an opinion.  He carefully  
said it was up to each person what they thought about it.  (GRIN)

Probably explains why he's in leadership jobs at work and in Debian,  
and I'm in grunt techie jobs, eh?  ;-)

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com