Sven Luther wrote:
Also, another danger i see in it, is that if we don't have a a non-free anymore, many packages which are borderlines, and which go into non-free today, will be tempted to go into main (well, not good english, but i guess you understand).
M J Ray wrote:
We make mistakes sometimes already and have to correct them. This sometimes results in the package being removed entirely and every maintainer I've worked with has been honest, thoughtful and polite about it. I doubt that will change.
That's not what's usually happened when non-free GNU documentation in a package has been pointed out. All maintainers are honest, I guess, but many are thoughtless and impolite. ("I don't think it's non-free, and anyone who disagrees with me is insane, regardless of how many there are.")
(Of course, some maintainers have been great about it.)I've recently noticed three packages with binaries and no source in the "source" archives. In "main". Honest? I don't know. But I think based on this that relying on good behavior from *all* maintainers in this manner is going to turn out badly. :-(
OK, sorry to be so depressing and negative.