Re: On the freeness of a BLOB-containing driver

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 08:53:32AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> >"contrib" exists for software which is free but fails SC#1, "we will never
> >make the system depend on an item of non-free software".  Moving something
> >from contrib to main that does, in fact, depend on such an item is a pretty
> >basic violation of Debian's principles.
>
> It's not clear to me that the system depends on a non-free component if 
> a single BLOB-requiring driver fails to install because the BLOB is not 
> present, leaving the overall system working except that it can't drive 
> one piece of hardware. The system depends on a non-free component if the 
> whole system won't work without it.

Huh?  So you're claiming that it's OK for software in main to depend on
non-free libraries, and not work at all without them, as long as the
system as a whole continues to work and the packaged data itself is Free;
and that contrib has no basis in the SC or DFSG at all?

-- 
Glenn Maynard