3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

MJ Ray mjr at phonecoop.coop
Tue Mar 13 22:57:03 UTC 2007


"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams at gnu.org> wrote:
>    [...] IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I
>    don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution
>    at the time.
>
> RMS never recommended Debian to people.

Firstly, that's contradicting a point that wasn't made: Gareth Bowker
(I think - still ams fails to attribute quotes) doesn't say that he
did.

Secondly, there are many interviews and reports which say RMS used to
recommend Debian (try a web search... for one example result,
http://beust.com/stallman.html).  However, I know reporters sometimes
make mistakes and it's not impossible that there could be so many.

> [...] it is another
> thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free
> software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
[...]

It was some time ago that FSF started distributing non-free-software
manuals to people.  I also expect that FSF has often distribued
machines to developers that currently require non-free software, in
the hope that it helps to develop free software for them.  I don't see
a fundamental problem in that, but maybe including such development
platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans
Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.

Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing
non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute*
non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free
or replace it.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Webmaster/web developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop maker,
developer of koha, debian, gobo, gnustep, various mail and web s/w.
Workers co-op @ Weston-super-Mare, Somerset http://www.ttllp.co.uk/



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