Re: Bug#30739: When a tiny part of a package uses non-free libraries
Kevin Dalley <kevind@rahul.net> wrote:
> Of course, if we stop talking and put our effort into writing a new
> free cardinfo, we would probably be done by now.
While I would love to see a version of cardinfo that did not use
xforms, that is only part of this discussion. The non-freeness of
xforms is irrelevant to most of the issues being debated in this
thread. (Although I suspect that it is responsible for the number of
replies.) The libforms package is listed under "Suggests," not because
it is non-free, but because cardinfo is not necessary for PCMCIA
support. Even if xforms was free, I don't think that pcmcia-cs should
"Depend" on it, just as pcmcia-cs should not "Depend" on xlib6g.
Requiring every notebook computer that uses PC cards to have the X
libraries installed in just plain wrong.
The main thrust of my arguments in this thread has been against
excessive package fragmentation. I feel that it is entirely
appropriate for a package to include a small amount of extra stuff that
the user can use or ignore at his own discretion. This opinion is
supported by the Debian policy documents and by other packages
currently contained in the distribution.
Brian
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