Sergey raised the issue of restricting use of software to non-military use, and Alan pointed out how much they've given back to the FLOSS community.

However, I'd like to point out that any such restriction violates rules for opensource used by both the FSF and Debian.

Debian is pretty clear about it in the social contract:

No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

And in the GNU Free Software Definition:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

So any such restriction would mean your software is no longer free software.

It's not that I'm in any way pro military, but allowing usage restrictions will cause a huge mess. Next we'll have some application which may not be used by religious zealots (of any kind), paedophiles, and at some point end up with a huge licensing mess (maybe even full of discrimination). ("No, I can't sell you a web server, because your brother-in-law is in the military."?)

Actually disallowing any military use is some kind of discrimination, too. Military is not only used to kill someone, but it can serve humanitarian purposes, too. Rescue people in flooded New Orleans etc. - if you are unhappy with what your government is using your military for, vote accordingly and do politics.

It's fine if you as the author point out that you disapprove of any use of it to harm anybody, or commit crimes; but don't put up restrictions you couldn't verify anyway. (As if the military would care much for any such restriction, anyway.)

Always remember: it's only the good guys playing by the rules. There is no use in disallowing use of some software for cracking, is there?

Joey and Josselin, I'm calling you childish, not because you "stand" your principles, but because of the way you try to convince others that your principles are better.

What you are using is:

• Insults ("lying", and for the record, FUD means twisting the facts and telling only half the story, and you are twisting the facts, as I detailed in my post; "should read constitution", which of course means to imply that I'm trying to deny you some constitutional right, which I'm not, I'm just asking you to stop spreading FUD)
• Blackmail and threats ("I'll stop contributing" [if dunc-bank is paying anyone], "reduced it much less than I could, probably much less than I should")
• Schadenfreude (the libpng mishap of the new maintainer; noone broke libpng intentionally. That is not a nice character trait, and pollutes the community)
• You seriously annoy people by going on and on and on, while everybody has already understood your opinion and arguments (and just happens to have a different opinion)
• Playing big words without actual content ("read the constitution §2.1.1", which btw. also states that you "must not actively work against these rules and decisions properly made under them"; your attempt at a GR failed, and you are working against these decisions on planet; I've however never said that you're oblieged to still work for Debian if you don't like the decision)

Actually, I'm by now convinced that it would have been better for Debian, if you would just have really left. Your behaviour in the last months makes you qualify as "poisonous people" (except these usually aren't big contributors). In my opinion, your infighting has harmed the project, it gives people the impression that being involved in Debian means mostly having to deal with such things. While it's not - Debian is still fun to me, although I have little time, and didn't manage to go to the last few Debian meetings here in Munich - all these fights are a nuisance to me. Even though I'm not actually affected by them (neither Dunc-Tank, because it doesn't demotivate me, nur the powerpc fights, nor some other fights on -private), the way they are dicussed on the Debian lists does annoy me.

Again: if anything is cutting on my motiviation, it's your behaviour (this btw. includes the powerpc issue and fighters, too, especially Sven Luther who has probably sent as many mails as all others together, just reiterating the same things again and again). So if you are planning to become a Debian contributor, learn to use the "delete" button in your email clients, and don't be afraid to just delete whole threads. Certain threads are just a waste of time and bring negative emotions.

So: Joey, Josselin: grow up, and accept that people sometimes have a different opinion, and you can achieve more by accepting that your opinions differ and just try to make the most of it anyway. Reminding them of your differences won't make them change their mind, nor will it make them like you any better.

Fortunately, most people in the project (well, everybody except me?) seem to obey above "poisoned people" recommendations, and just ignored your posts on this issue. I didn't, and one of the reasons it that I feared Joeys first post could grab some media attention, and I felt there should be at least one post saying that, well, the debian-installer and some other RC bugs are probably also a cause of the delay, and it's probably not worth rehashing the dunc-bank issue. So far, I've only seen one news article citing aba that the delay was caused by the debian installer among others, no "the delay is due to dunc-bank demotivating all developers" FUD.