Michael Poole wrote: > Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes: >>Michael Poole wrote: >>>Josh Triplett writes: >>> >>>>If the ICQ server were packaged in the Debian non-free section, would >>>>you make ICQ clients Depends: or Recommends: on the ICQ server? If not, >>>>then if the ICQ server were packaged, the ICQ client would still be in >>>>main. Therefore, the ICQ client can be in main. >>> >>>A, ergo B, ergo A. >> >>Please explain why you think my argument is circular. I have argued that: >>(1) If the ICQ server were packaged in non-free, we still wouldn't make >>the client Depends:, Recommends:, or Build-Depends: on the server, and >>therefore in that situation the ICQ client could be in main. >>(2) For the purposes of deciding if software can be in main in the >>presence of possible unexpressed dependencies on external "too free for >>non-free" software, we should take the same actions we would if the >>non-free software were packaged in non-free and the dependencies were >>expressed. > > "Depends" and "Build-Depends" are not necessarily the entirety of the > Social Contract's idea of dependency. They are, however, a major part of the definition of the "main" section in Debian Policy, which is intended to be the concrete implementation of the Social Contract's statement. I am proposing that the only reason Depends, Recommends, and Build-Depends could form the *entirety* of the test for software getting into the main section rather than the contrib section, with the minor addition that we still consider dependencies that we *would* express but can't because the target of the dependency is not packaged. The definition of "contrib" already suggests "or packages which are not in our archive at all"; I am simply suggesting that we make the definition of "main" also consider the case of such packages. >>(3) As a concrete instance of (2), for the purposes of deciding if an >>ICQ client can be in main in the presence of possible unexpressed >>dependencies on an ICQ server, we should take the actions we would if >>the server were packaged in non-free. By (1), that action would be to >>leave the ICQ client in main. Therefore we should leave the ICQ client >>in main. > > Your argument is that the ICQ client does not depend on the ICQ > server; therefore it is free and can go into main; therefore it does > not depend on the ICQ server. If that were my argument, then it would indeed be circular. However, my argument ends simply with "Therefore we should leave the ICQ client in main.". I do not, as you have suggested, continue on to circularly conclude that the ICQ client does not depend on the server; that is a premise, not a conclusion. [Snipping the rest of your message since Glenn Maynard has already replied to it and argued the same position that I hold.] - Josh Triplett
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