Re: Discussion - non-free software removal
On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 11:37:30PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > How far must it wither before we decide it's not longer useful? To
> > > zero?
> > >
> > > What if Debian's support for non-free is actually contributing to its
> > > vitality?
> >
> > We had about 780 contrib+non-free packages in slink, about 800 in potato,
> > and about 570 in woody. That certainly doesn't seem like it's time for major
> > negative decisions, nor that the section is terribly vital.
>
> The GR is not to eliminate contrib, but just non-free.
Are you starting to ignore relations like CosmicRay now? If non-free goes
away, contrib likely gets a boost, with installer packages for the useful
stuff in non-free. Or drops, even, if some non-free library goes away, the
dependent packages in contrib are worthless.
(Note that I don't have a number of non-free only from slink or potato
anyhow. The old data is from the FAQ data files which didn't have them
recorded separately, and I can't be arsed to go count them in debian-archive.)
> How many of the 570 were non-free?
% grep-available -F Section non-free --count
337
That's on a moderately tainted machine, though, so it may vary.
> What's your bellyfeel number for how small non-free must get before we
> can safely toss it?
IMO, needless crap needs to be weeded out before we start making such
decisions. Out of the 570, there could be 150 useful packages and the rest
is worthless, and there could be 450, but we won't know without a decent
analysis.
(On related note, needless crap also needs to be weeded out from main, and
the numbers may well be even more depressing. :|)
--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.
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