[Fsf-Debian] [Fsf-collab] Some top items from nonfree

[Bryan Quigley]

> I'm not convinced that DebianExtended even makes sense, myself.
> Non-free is already not part of debian's official distribution.
>
> Do we have an official statement from the FSF that the existence of
> non-free (and what about contrib?) are the core of their concerns with
> debian?

As a user, I see nonfree and contrib as part of Debian.  Despite
"...not (being) part of the Debian system,...". Just because it's
defined that way doesn't really make it true.  I mean what it *is*, is
defined in the Social Contract.   What project are they apart of, if
not Debian?

The FSF does have a page describing why they don't endorse Debian
[http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html]

> I like this idea, but i'm not sure how to go about it.  Can you explain
> how you'd like to proceed?

I couldn't find any page describing why something is included in
nonfree.  I'm thinking a wiki page:
|  Project Name   |     packagename(s)     |    Reason
                      |            Discussion upstream
|  ProjectX            |     x-data                        |    Old
Artistic License                   |            Bug Report Link
|                            |      x
|   non-commercial use only         |           Link to upstream
discussion
|  Nvidia-prop      |     nvidia-glx                   |
"consistency with other OSes" |           nVidia press release
etc..

We each take some projects and contact them, documenting as we go.
Note: the "reason" is the upstream one, although we might want to
justify why something is included as well.  In addition, including any
free projects doing the same thing, and when that project would be
*enough* (when we no longer "need" it in nonfree) could be useful as
well (nouveau - nvidia).

> Convincing the upstream of every package in non-free to change their
> license seems implausible, so that means that some packages would likely
> remain.  How would that affect the FSF's concerns?

Removing a couple packages from nonfree won't get us an endorsement.
It might get us to the point one day (long term) that we no longer
fell that nonfree is necessary.

Bryan