1.2. The Foundation Documents
Some years after its initial launch, Debian formalized the principles that it should follow as a free software project. This activist step allows orderly and peaceful growth by ensuring that all members progress in the same direction. To become a Debian developer, any candidate must confirm and prove their support and adherence to the principles established in the project's Foundation Documents.
The development process is constantly debated, but these Foundation Documents are widely and consensually supported, thus rarely change. The Debian constitution also offers other guarantees: a qualified majority of three quarters is required to approve any amendment.
1.2.1. The Commitment towards Users
The project also has a “social contract”. What place does such a text have in a project only intended for the development of an operating system? That is quite simple: Debian works for its users, and thus, by extension, for society. This contract summarizes the commitments that the project undertakes. Let us study them in greater detail:
Debian will remain 100% free.
This is Rule No. 1. Debian is and will remain composed entirely and exclusively of free software. Additionally, all software development within the Debian project, itself, will be free.
We will give back to the free software community.
Any improvement contributed by the Debian project to a work integrated in the distribution is sent back to the author of the work (called “upstream”). In general, Debian will cooperate with the community rather than work in isolation.
We will not hide problems.
Debian is not perfect, and, we will find new problems to fix every day. We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file on-line will promptly become visible to others.
Our priorities are our users and free software.
This commitment is more difficult to define. Debian imposes, thus, a bias when a decision must be made, and will discard an easy solution for the developers that will jeopardize the user experience, opting for a more elegant solution, even if it is more difficult to implement. This means to take into account, as a priority, the interests of the users and free software.
Works that do not meet our free software standards.
Debian accepts and understands that users often want to use some non-free programs. That's why the project allows usage of parts of its infrastructure to distribute Debian packages of non-free software that can safely be redistributed.
1.2.2. The Debian Free Software Guidelines
This reference document defines which software is “free enough” to be included in Debian. If a program's license is in accord with these principles, it can be included in the main section; on the contrary, and provided that free distribution is permitted, it may be found in the non-free section. The non-free section is not officially part of Debian; it is an added service provided to users.
More than a selection criteria for Debian, this text has become an authority on the subject of free software, and has served as the basis for the “Open Source definition”. It is, thus, historically one of the first formalizations of the concept of “free software”.
The GNU General Public License, the BSD License, and the Artistic License are examples of traditional free licenses that follow the 9 points mentioned in this text. Below you will find the text as it is published on the Debian website.