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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, most of the heat Debian has received has been from its strict adherence to open source guidelines. A lot of people like to make fun of the distro for its lack of pragmatism.

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I would agree. The Firefox/Iceweasel thing is probably the best example of this.[1] It seems silly on the surface (who cares right?) but Debian is very strict on the idea of freely redistributable software, even to minute levels other distros might not care about. The presence of debian-legal for so long is another testament to this fact (the mailing list archives go back to 1998). [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re...

[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/

I think it is completely non-silly. Debian was very simply and to the letter of the law in violation of the terms under which a piece of software can be called Firefox, and at any time Mozilla Corporation is entitled to bring civil action, as far as I can tell. My understanding is that at the time they were backpatching security fixes to derivative versions of Firefox -- specifically, older versions for which upstream had dropped support. What if one of those introduced an annoying crash or security problem? Is it fair that Mozilla Corporation's Good Name on the hook for it, if it does not wish to be?

If Mozilla Corporation (or would it be Foundation?) felt that they wanted to enable this kind of derivative distribution of their software, they could have very simply offered provisions like the Linux Trademark Institute: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/trademark. Clearly, Debian still has many references -- and modifications -- to Linux.

Problem solved. But, as far as I can tell, this was not to be.

I am not a Debian developer nor someone who was actively following that conversation, but when I heard about the decision I have not heard a single convincing (or even any) argument that it was an incorrect one, but again, I'm not familiar with the matter in great detail. Proprietary software companies can be awfully persnickety about...well, everything regarding their license and trademark, and I don't see why lack of adherence to a contract is acceptable just because there is Free Software (but not free trademark) involved.

The silliest part is the name chosen.

Heh, I had a hand in the creation of the latter:-)

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1998/11/msg02560.html

The only problem with it is that, at least in the past, there were no qualifications to join it, so you got lots of "legal opinions" from people that weren't necessarily grounded in any sort of actual ... reality.

In any event though, Debian is awesome, and an extremely impressive volunteer effort.

The thing that's always bothered me about that browser is the name, it almost sounds like it was chosen to be antagonistic, like they had a chip on their shoulder. I am probably reading too much into it, but that's the impression I get when comparing the two names: Firefox = fast & determined; Iceweasel = cold & deceitful.

Derivatives like Knoppix or Ubuntu wouldn't be possible -- or at least couldn't sprout so easily -- if it weren't for that strict adherence to open source guidelines. The way it is, makers of derivatives need not worry about infringing IP rights, they can simply depend on the Debian community to sort that out and only include free software in the distribution (free as in freedom).

-- Debian user since April 1996 (0.93R6)

Do you remember the heat debian used to get because of the installer?

I rejected debian a number of times early on because of d-i. Just like the parent I did slack->redhat->debian and it was a friend in college that helped me get over my debian installer phobia. After that I have not looked back.

I will admit I flirted with Ubuntu once or thrice but I never found any compelling reason to switch and I was never been able to get used to the minor modifications that they make to Debian. Do not read that as a knock on Ubuntu. I think Ubuntu is a great distribution for casual linux users. Ubuntu (and canonical) has done a lot for the adoption of linux in general.

How does accepting "this software cannot be used to build devices with certain (mis-)features (except for personal use that doesn't count as distribution)" and declaring it compatible with dfsg#6 count as a lack of pragmatism?

They get heat from the other side too, because of the non-free repository.

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