The first version of the Debian Social Contract said “Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software”. The disappearance of this last word (with the ratification of Version 1.1 of the contract in April of 2004) indicates the will to achieve freedom, not only in software, but also in the documentation and any other element that Debian wishes to provide within its operating system.

此改變，雖然祗是編輯上的，實際上，卻產生很多影響，特別是移除很多有問題的文件。尤其是，驅動程式的韌體造成的問題：很多是不自由的，卻是相對硬體不可或缺的一部份。

The term “upstream author” means the author(s)/developer(s) of a work, those who write and develop it. On the other hand, a “Debian developer” usually uses an existing work to make it into a Debian package - the term “Debian maintainer” is better suited here.

In practice, there can be overlaps between both roles: the Debian maintainer may write a patch, which benefits all users of the work. In general, Debian encourages those in charge of a package in Debian to get involved in “upstream” development as well (they become, then, contributors, without being confined to the role of simple users of a program). Or the Debian developer creates tools or documentation for the Debian distribution, like packaging helpers (e.g. debhelper) or integration frameworks (e.g. ca-certificates) and becomes an “upstream author” for those creations.

Debian 社群經常爭論納入不自由軟體的結構 (即 '不自由' 區塊，見邊欄 術語主要、奉獻 與 不自由 檔案)。

批評者認為等同於把人驅離自由軟體，違反祗服務自由軟體的原則。支持者則指出大部份的不自由套件已 '接近自由'，祗多了一兩個惱人的限制 (最常見的是禁止商業使用)。在不自由區塊發行這些作品，我們向著者解釋被納入的作品可擴大其知名度與散布面。然後，客氣地請求變更授權以達成其目標。

After a first and unfruitful attempt in 2004, the complete removal of the non-free section is unlikely to return to the agenda, especially since it contains many useful documents that were moved simply because they did not meet the new requirements for the main section. This is especially the case for certain software documentation files issued by the GNU project (in particular, Emacs and Make). Many modern systems further also require so called “firmware“, small binary files, which are necessary to run specific hardware. Many of these files can also only be found in the non-free section.

自由軟體基金會痛恨非自由區塊，成為拒絕正式推薦 Debian 為自由軟體作業系統的主因。

著佐權是使用著作權保護自由作品及其衍生作品的原則。其實是對 '著作權' 一詞的雙關語。一個喜歡雙關語的人，告訴理查德·斯托曼：'著佐權：版權回覆'。著佐權強制保留發行原著或衍生著作 (通常是程式) 原來的自由。源自著佐權的程式碼，不能把散布成專屬軟體。

The most well-known family of copyleft licenses is, of course, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and its derivatives, the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Sadly, the copyleft licenses are generally incompatible with each other. Consequently, it is best to use only one of them.

GNU 通用公共授權、BSD 授權、與Artistic 授權都是與 Debian 自由軟體授權指導方針相容的授權，即使他們彼此並不相同。

The GNU GPL, used and promoted by the FSF (Free Software Foundation), is the most common. Its main feature is that it also applies to any derived work that is redistributed: a program incorporating or using GPL code can only be distributed according to its terms. It prohibits, thus, any reuse in a proprietary application. This poses serious problems for the reuse of GPL code in free software incompatible with this license. As such, it is sometimes impossible to link a program published under another free software license with a library distributed under the GPL. On the other hand, this license is very solid in American law: FSF lawyers have participated in the drafting thereof, and have often forced violators to reach an amicable agreement with the FSF without going to court.

The BSD license is the least restrictive: everything is permitted, including use of modified BSD code in a proprietary application.

Finally, the Artistic License reaches a compromise between these two others: integration of code in a proprietary application is permitted, but any modification must be published.

The complete text of these licenses is available in /usr/share/common-licenses/ on any Debian system (in case of BSD the newer 3-Clause License).