Re: [gentoo-dev] Ethical Policy

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 12:19, David Herbert wrote:
> Where I have a problem is with the totally dishonest implication that
> gentoo.org is making. Gentoo.org is implying that they are somehow
> different, but it now quite clear that you are not.  I think that if you
> were a .org in sprit rather then just a domain name, you would be proud and
> happy to answer my ethical concerns, but instead you are mearly brushing
> away and dismissing them, which is exactly what I'd expect of Microsoft, I
> just never expected it from a Linux .org organization.  I'm also surprised
> that apparently so many people are helping you, giving you there own time
> and effort without questioning who you are.

Tod and aeoo (the people who have been replying to you up until now) are
new Gentoo Linux developers, and their responses do *not* represent the
official policy or friendliness of the Gentoo Linux development
community as a whole.  I think that they (well, at least Tod) were
trying to point you to information that would hopefully answer your
question.

I lead Gentoo Linux development, and you should take my response as
being official.

Here's your answer.  _We abide by the Debian Social Contract_, taking
into account necessary differences in item 5 due to the nature of the
Portage system, explained below.

Item 5 states that "non-free" software is not a part of the Debian
distribution.  We include build scripts for non-free software in our
Portage tree as a convenience for users, and *do* consider those build
scripts part of Gentoo Linux.  Since they are just build scripts (and
not binaries themselves), doing this is perfectly legal and does not
endanger the "freeness" of the rest of the distribution.  Besides this
semantic difference, we abide by all other areas of the Debian Social
Contract, *including* the statement that Gentoo Linux will never be
dependent on non-free software in order to function.  Well, with the
possible exception of your PC BIOS :)

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins                                  <drobbins@g.o>
Chief Architect/President                       http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.