Re: Non-recompilable binaries in source and binary packages (Adobe Flash strikes again)
On to, 2010-08-12 at 20:31 +0200, Tanguy Ortolo wrote:
> Le jeudi 12 août 2010, Ian Jackson a écrit :
> > The current approach of the project in these cases seems to be that
> > the right thing to do is to rebuild the source package so that the
> > non-free pieces are removed.
>
> Non-free? According to the DFSG, are not they free? I cannot see any
> point of the DFSG that such a program, distributed both in source and
> compiled form, with a free license, compilable only with non-free tools,
> would infringe.
There's at least two requirements for software included in Debian main:
a) the license must be free according to the DFSG
b) all binaries in main must be built only from sources in main, using
only tools in main
If we don't have b), Debian is not self-sustaining: in order to build
Debian we would have to have access to other systems, or software from
outside of Debian. (Non-free being outside of Debian for the purpose of
this paragraph.)
Not being self-sustainable, in turn, means we are limited in how
efficiently we can fix bugs, especially security bugs.
Relying on tools package in Debian's non-free section might work,
technically, depending on the exact (and possibly changing) details of
the license. However, I doubt it's the kind of thing the project wants
to rely on.
To me, it sounds like you need to put your package into contrib,
including its binary packages, until you can convince upstream to fix
things so that they do not require non-free tools to build, or you
convince the upstreams of the non-free tools to free their software.
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