[Gllug] Linuxemporium - Pink Tie

[David Damerell]

On Thursday, 21 Nov 2002, Tethys wrote:
>>Not to be a smug Debian user, but the only answer is a distribution
>>with a real committment to remaining Free.
>Like Red Hat, you mean? They have repeatedly stated that their distribution
>is, and will remain, free, and that all code they write will be under an
>open source license.

I think it's increasingly clear that that was not true. In particular,
their stupid trademark maneuver was clearly aimed at ending free and
low-cost distribution of the discs; I think Mr Winters has made it
clear here not only that they thought they _could_ do that, but that
they actively attempted to put a stop to such distribution.

It seems clear to me that this would have violated the "free
distribution" term of the DFSG/OSD with regards to the distribution as
a whole, even if the individual packages remained under free licenses.

Even now, when reproducing Red Hat CDs demands that one alter the
contents of the CDs and somehow jumps through hoops to imply it _is_
Red Hat, it is hard to see Red Hat as a whole as free.

>would accompany such a U-turn. But then again, there's nothing stopping
>Debian from doing the same thing either.

No, but I think one can recognise that it is effectively impossible
that a majority of Debian developers would approve of such a move; and
ultimately such decisions _are_ taken by Debian developers. However,
one can also recognise that it is quite likely that any commercial
operation's management will carry out such a move; in particular, one
can recognise that Red Hat, Suse and Caldera have already made it.

As regards the rest of the flameage - which was unspeakably badly
quoted, and I lack any real desire to clean it up enough to reply to
it - I didn't say you should use Debian if your primary criterion in
choosing a distribution is that you don't want to learn anything about
computers, or if you rate them by the prettiness of their GUI
installers; so pointing out that people with those approaches may not
like Debian is rather daft. I said you should use it if the most
important thing for you is that your distribution is Free and will
remain Free.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?

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