[Discussioni] [joey a finlandia.infodrom.north.de: Debian Weekly News - October 30th, 2001]

[Francesco Potorti`]

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 21:42:08 +0100
Resent-from: debian-news a lists.debian.org
From: Martin Schulze <joey a finlandia.infodrom.north.de>
Subject: Debian Weekly News - October 30th, 2001
To: Debian News Channel <debian-news a lists.debian.org>
Reply-to: Martin Schulze <joey a infodrom.north.de>

...

Feedback from RMS. We got a response from Richard M. Stallman about
our statement on discussing free and non-free software in DWN, and we
promised to pass it on:

"The situations of GNOME and Debian are not the same, because GNOME is
a part of the GNU Project. The GNU Project policy since the outset has
been that we don't advertise availability of non-free software. GNOME
ought to follow this policy. (I wish that Debian would adopt it, too.)

The reason that GNU has this policy is to follow our own principles
seriously. The reason for developing the GNU system, and the central
principle of what we say to the public, is that non-free software is a
bad thing. If we recommend a non-free program, we contradict that
principle. Others whose actions are based on different principles
might be able to recommend a non-free program without contradicting
their principles, but not us."

For the time being, DWN will continue to report on non-free software
when appropriate -- however, when we do list non-free software in the
"New Packages" section or elsewhere, it will be labelled as such.

...

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