Re: Discussion - non-free software removal

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 10:18:13PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>  [...] The presence of
>  a few essential non-free packages has allowed me to start converting
>  people over to free software). 

I think this is a compelling argument for keeping the non-free archive
around for another couple of years.

However, I do think we should try to reduce it to just those essential
packages.  (With a generous interpretation of "essential".)

I think the first step for this is to create some way for non-free
packages to advertise their own free alternatives, perhaps with
information about how to convert.  This advertisement would encourage
people to tell us if they have specific reasons for not converting,
so that we know which improvements would do the most good.  Also,
if we hear of no such reasons, we can consider dropping the package.

If a non-free package doesn't *have* a free alternative, then this is
clearly a problem and should be so marked :-)

Then, in a year or so, we can come back and take a hard look at the
non-free packages that no-one has bothered to mark one way or the other.

Richard Braakman