Re: The "Free" vs. "Non-Free" issue
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 10:33:51AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > And what was my last example, a yes, lha. I hear there are some free
> > versions of this one around. I would be happy to package it if this was
> > the case, please point me to alternatives, and we can remove lha from
> > non-free, no problem.
>
> [...]
>
> > And i would support a way of removing non-free that is flexible. Let's
> > say that we say we provide infrastructure for distributing non-free, but
> > also to help orient people to free alternative, either as users or as
> > developers.
On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 11:51:15AM +0100, Michael Banck wrote:
> You don't want to look yourself for free replacements for your *own*
> needs, but propose that "we [...] help orient people to free
> alternatives"? Without volunteers, this will not work.
He never claimed that he didn't want to look for himself for free
replacements for his own needs. His claim indicated he hadn't succeeded
in finding that free replacement.
However, some of the packages in non-free are not likely to ever have any
alternatives at all (doc-rfc comes to mind), so in those cases looking
free alternatives would not be useful even with volunteers.
By the way, doc-rfc is an example of a package in non-free which is
useful to some people. If a person is doing network development, they're
likely to need this documentation and [because someone doing network
development often needs to be disconnected from the stable internet]
having the documentation packaged and available locally would be useful.
--
Raul
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