On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 01:35:11PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > > After the discussions so far, I'm inclined towards the following two views > > of our policy on this: > > * first, that dependencies are one way -- programs depend on > > libraries, but libraries don't depend on the programs that use > > them; > I don't think that can really be true in the general case. For example, > we have the "base system" where pretty much everything in base has > a mutual dependency on pretty much everything else in base. wget and netcat are in base, but nothing else in the base system depends on them. But anyway, as I said to Ian, I'm not trying to deny the existance of mutual dependencies -- obviously they exist. What I'm getting at is that not all dependencies are mutual; just because a library isn't "useful" without some application that uses it (maybe one you write yourself), that doesn't mean it depends on having some such application installed. > > * and second, that programs that only operate when interacting with > > non-free programs, whether over the net or via data files, aren't > > considered to depend on those non-free programs. > The issue I thought was important in the context of ndiswrapper was: what > software has to be installed on the debian system for people to use > ndiswrapper? > I'm not sure that this general statement really refutes that position. The above is the other stem I think's necessary to cover programs suitable for main that wouldn't be useful in a world where all the non-free software suddenly disappeared. I don't have any problem with "non-free software must be involved, but needn't be installed on the system" as a restatement of the second principle above. It's independent of the first one though, which is the one that affects ndiswrapper. > But I think this case -- <<where root privileges are needed, in order to > install non-free software, in order to make the package work the way that > people typically think of as using it>>... I think this case is on the wrong > side of that line. I don't think whether root has to be used is a good line to draw -- putting an installer package in main that automatically downloads a separate copy of the non-free software for each user than runs it wouldn't be right, imo. Cheers, aj
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