[Fsf-Debian] few arguments to FSF

[Adam Bolte]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 07:52:26AM +1000, Karl Goetz wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Aug 2012, 23:37:23 EST, Adam Bolte <abolte at systemsaviour.com> wrote:
> > My understanding is that Dmitry was referring to free software that is
> > thought to potentially infringe on patents or otherwise not be
> > considered free by the DFSG. This is why I also referred to the GFDL
> > documentation which would be a similar situation - it is considered free
> > by the FSF yet excluded from main. If other distributions use the FSF
> > definition and would normally include such items, they might perhaps
> > choose to make a Debian repository instead to do just that. It would be
> > a lot less effort than maintaining an entire distribution fork, if they
> > felt so inclined.
> 
> Ah, I see what you mean. The people who worked on free distros would
> contribute to maintaining the doco or patent encumbered packages.
> 
> While i cant comment on the likelyhood in general, i will note if
> proprietary software was in the same repo they would be unlikely to
> contribute. In that instance i feel it would be more likely they start
> another repo.  Thanks, kk

It's probably unlikely, since as it stands I think there is a license the DFSG
considers free but the FSF does not? That would need to be addressed first to
attract such people to make a FSF-free repository. I'm not sure how this
specific issue could be solved.

I also agree - if there were any possibility of such a FSF-free repository to
be created, it would need to be exclusively FSF-free software, or it would
miss the point.

Cheers,
Adam
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