Re: Debian? Not true GNU/Linux?? Say it isn't so!
- From: Hal Vaughan <hal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:39:00 -0400
On Thursday 03 April 2008, Chris Walters wrote:
Hal Vaughan wrote:
| On Thursday 03 April 2008, Chris Walters wrote:
|> Ron Johnson wrote:
|> | On 04/03/08 15:39, Ivan Savcic wrote:
|> |> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:03 PM, Ron Johnson
|> |> <ron.l.johnson@xxxxxxx> wrote:
|>
|> <snip>
|>
|> |>> That smells of elitism. (Not that I mind...)
|> |>
|> |> No, it's just you can't have all. It's a matter of compromise.
|> |> A "pick two" game, if you wish. And Debian simply can't please
|> |> everyone. The point is, why be bothered by that? Debian set
|> |> it's goals and a corresponding target group was gathered around
|> |> them. And a good one, if you ask me.
|> |
|> | Because it's "elitist" to not want to please all the people all
|> | the time...
|>
|> No, it is elitist to say, "Debian is the only good distribution,
|> the only truly GNU/Linux distribution worth having. All others
|> are for the uneducated masses, who don't care about being right.
|> We are smarter and better than they are, because we choose Debian
|> - all hail the mighty Debian!"
|
| According to St. IGNUcious himself (aka RMS), at a talk I saw him
| give last Thursday, Debian isn't a true GNU/Linux distro because it
| includes non-free software.
|
| I'm not saying I agree with him on this, but it is his opinion that
| there are only a few truly free distros out there. He named them
| and I've forgotten them, but they were not any names I recognized
| or had heard of before and I'm familiar with at least the top 25-50
| names.
|
| Hal
You can see them listed on the gnu.org website (the supposedly only
true GNU/Linux distributions). To be on that list, you have to only
offer pure open source GPL'ed software, yada yada. I didn't
recognize any of them, either and I periodically look at DistroWatch
to see if there are any new ones that will allow me to rule the
world! lol.
Yeah, I figured they'd be listed on the GNU website -- that I didn't
bother to check and see what the distros were is an indication of just
how important I thought it was. While I love open source, and think it
offers much closed source does not, I wouldn't go anywhere near as far
as RMS would in saying closed source is unethical. I also have to
wonder if he would have the same stance if, when he started that
crusade, he weren't at a university, but had to make a living and pay
the bills and pay for junior's food by programming at a company that
made money on software.
Seriously, that is a bit too open source purist for most people, as
most people want choices - I'd bet that the majority of the users of
those other distros (all two of them), download and use non-free
software.
I did think of asking him about distros such as Debian and *buntu that
don't include non-free but have "unofficial" ways of having it added
after the fact, but decided there was no point to it.
Hal
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