Re: GR: Removal of non-free
On Fri, Dec 26, 2003 at 09:59:21PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 27, 2003 at 09:39:10AM +0900, Junichi Uekawa wrote:
> >
> > Hmm... that will significantly degrade the ability to
> > read japanese pdf files.
>
> Since non-free software is not now part of the Debian distribution, it
> will have no effect.
>
> If people that include non-free in their sources list are unable to
> point to another non-free archive, why is it so hard?
The problem is not really the name we give to it, but the rest of the
infrastructure. What about the BTS, and what about the status of
maintainers maintaining non-free packages ? And finally, what of the
quality perception of those non-free packages once they aren o more part
of debian.
For the information, i have interest in at least 3 parts of non-free :
1) ocaml-doc : the documentation for the (now free, but previously
non-free) ocaml package. Notice that many documentation in main should
really be in non-free, but that is another discussion.
2) unicorn : this is a driver for my ADSL pci modem, which is in se
free, but use a non-free binary only software ADSL library, which even
the manufacturer of the card has not access to the source of it.
Compare this to many other stuff in main which needs to download
non-free codecs and such.
3) lha : an uncompressor i sometimes need, but for which i don't care
enough to code or look for a free alternative.
That said, there are many packages in non-free i absolutely don't care
about, and which for me could be removed, but maybe other persons care
about them ? As long as there are serious maintainers working on the
packages, why should they be removed ? On what right do you want to
impose on me as a volunteer on which packages i want to work and on
which i don't ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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