Debian is so committed to free software that we thought it would be useful
if it was formalized in a document of some sort. Our Social Contract
promises that Debian will always be 100% free software. When you install a
package from the Debian main distribution, you can be sure it meets our
Free Software Guidelines.

Although Debian believes in free software, there are cases where people
want to put proprietary software on their machine. Whenever possible
Debian will support this; though proprietary software is not included in
the main distribution, it is sometimes available on the FTP site in the
non-free directory, and there is a growing number of packages whose sole
job is to install proprietary software we are not allowed to distribute
ourselves.

It is important to distinguish commercial software from proprietary
software. Proprietary software is non-free software; commercial software
is software sold for money. Debian permits commercial software, but not
proprietary software, to be a part of the main distribution. Remember that
the phrase ``free software'' does not refer to price; it is quite possible
to sell free software. For more clarification of the terminology, see
http://www.opensource.org/or
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/categories.html.

About This Book

This book is aimed at readers who are new to Debian GNU/Linux. It assumes
no prior knowledge of GNU/Linux or other Unix-like systems, but it does
assume very basic general knowledge about computers and hardware; you
should know what the basic parts of a computer are, and what one might use