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Isn't it sort of obvious that the reason #Debian is not !free is that it has an official nonfree repository? !notatroll !puzzled #levitation
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@fontana their reply to that is that while nonfree is handled by the debian project, it it outsid…
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Better said by this person on LWN.net: http://ur1.ca/9q4ky (final paragraph)
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@jezra I'm not saying that (tho' some might feel that way) - rather just saying, be honest that you host both free and nonfree software
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I don't believe the non-free repository is official. It's hard to determine what "official" really means in Debian, though.
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@gomerx I can go to debian.org and download non-free software. Does "official" matter? Still distributing it either way.
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@fontana I see it as a Distro meeting the desires of it's users by including the freedom to let the user install what they want
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"Official" matters in the context of the original question. Debian doesn't encourage the use of non-free software. Your opinion may differ.
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@gomerx So "unofficial" non-free is somehow better than "official" non-free? Seem like a way to justify distribution of non-free software.
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No. That's not what I said at all. Debian chooses to allow people to use non-free if they want. That's freedom to me.
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@gomerx "Freedom is not measured by the number of choices. That's the wrong way to analyze it, and leads to very bad conclusions."
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@gomerx To quote http://ur1.ca/9q586
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I understand. I just disagree with his position. RMS is right on a lot of stuff, but not this.
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@laurelrusswurm Exactly but this isn't about what people do on their own computers but Debian's actions. I like this: http://ur1.ca/9q5qd
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@jxself (1) "what Debian does for them" and (2) "what Debian directs them towards" are two very different things.
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@jxself I would accept that Debian actively promoting non-free would be an issue; but not making a non-free software repository available
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@jxself part of why Free Software works well is repositories, which is radically different from proprietary software (or at least windows)
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@jxself It may not seem to be a big issue to tech people like you, but non techs like me haven't the faintest idea how to make a repository
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@jxself which means that denying inclusion of proprietary software in repositories effectively removes choice from non tech folk like me
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