Defining Free Software Business

[MJ Ray]

Kaloian Doganov <kaloian at doganov.org>
> 	The Debian Project does not sell proprietary software.
> 
> In the same sense Microsoft is not Internet Explorer's vendor, Sun
> Microsystems is not Java (TM)'s vendor, Oracle is not Oracle Database
> Client's vendor, and Adobe is not Acrobat Reader (TM)'s vendor, because
> these programs are not sold (e.g. distributed at no cost), therefore,
> they have no vendors.  In this sense, Debian Project is not a
> proprietary software vendor, yes.

In a wider sense: the Debian Project does not hold copyright of
any proprietary software, unlike Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and Adobe.
Maybe you meant manufacturer or producer, but the Debian Project
doesn't do that either.

The Debian Project is even less of a proprietary software vendor
than Linux Magazine, who published Georg's Brave GNU World in a
friendly way IIRC, so some FSFers must have thought them worthy
of assistance.  So helping Debian should not be a problem.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJR/slef
Laux nur mia opinio: vidu http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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