Re: Going ahead with non-free-firmware
On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 19:27:22 -0500
Hendrik Boom <hendrik@topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 09, 2016 at 10:36:53PM +0100, Philippe Cerfon wrote:
> > And btw:
> > Even if Debian doesn't want to do the non-open thing now or perhaps
> > generally doesn't want to allow people to opt-out of closed source
> > software while keeping other non-free software, then the name
> > non-free-firmware seems to break the current naming, doesn't it?
> > main
> > contrib
> > non-free
> >
> > These all give the "license status" of their packages.
> > But non-free-firmware, would give license status and package type.
> >
> >
> > Oh and since this has been brought up by someone.
> > It seems better if packages wouldn't be in multiple suites.
> > That's also what I'd have intended with non-open, in other words, a
> > package that is in non-open is only there and not also in e.g.
> > non-open/firmware (and vice versa).
>
> Maybe closed-source would be clearer than non-open.
>
> -- hendrik
>
One thing that really bugs me about the Debian component system is failure to
differentiate between software (the functional component to any computer
system) and data (the non-functional component of a computer hardware/software
system). Example: I personally oppose non-free software and will not install or
run it. But I have no such qualms about non-free data- that is something for
the free *culture* movement, not the free *software* movement- of which Debian
is a project, and in which Debian should maintain its focus.
The inclusion of both non-free software and data in non-free means that in
order to use, say, AlienArena, which is free software but relies on non-free
data, one must enable both non-free and contrib! It is a pretty silly
situation- that in order to play a free game one must sacrifice their freedom
and enable the non-free component.
I would divide the Debian package repository as follows:
1. free-software
This would be for free software.
2. free-data
This would be for free data.
3. non-free-software
This would be for non-free software.
4. non-free-data
This would be for non-free data.
One could go even further and divide the non-free-software component into
components based on exactly *what* freedom is being withheld- so 'drm' (for
freedom 0), 'no-source' (for freedom 1), 'non-redistributable' (for freedom 2)
and 'non-modifiable' (for freedom 3) or something along those lines.
Of course, being a free software fanatic myself, I would prefer that Debian
just stopped encouraging the use of and distributing non-free software, but
since that isn't happening anytime soon, I see this as the best solution.
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