Re: Proposal: Keep non-free

[Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>]

Sven Luther wrote:
> > We cannot include it in Debian anyway, since it is non-free.  If Debian
> > stops distributing it but people will build ftp.non-free.org, what's
> > the different from the users' perspective?  A new apt-line.  Oh horror...
> 
> Because most probably, nobody will build ftp.non-free.org. I would be
> happy to be proven the contrary though, and once such an alternative
> structure is up, and works in an acceptable way, then i would see no
> opposition to move non-free to it. But upto now, i have seen only empty
> words about it. Is the free software/open source way of doing not : show
> the code, and if it is good, let's use it. The same should go in this
> case.

Sounds like a henn-and-egg problem to me:

 1. as long as non-fre is distributed through debian.org nobody
    will build nonfree.org.

 2. as long as nonfree.org isn't functional, debian.org cannot
    (should not?) stop distributing non-free.

For this, I'd just say, stop distributing non-free through debian.org
and wait for the demand to build nonfree.org by the people interested
in such a repository.  There are some Debian people insterested in,
so that the know how from debian.org can/will be used as well.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it.  -- Donald E. Knuth