Keeping non-free separate

[Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi>]

Someone suggested that we should forget about non-free and fold all
non-free software into the normal distribution.  While I'm an advocate
about this, the proposal has real problems.  Most importantly, it means
that every CD producer would have to go through all packages and make
sure that they can be sold on a CD.  That's a lot of extra work, and it
means that fewer CD producers will be doing the work.

It also opens Debian for accusations, if and when the copyright holder of
a non-free package gets annoyed.  I was reminded about this when going
through some old files (yes, my hard disk is getting filled again).

I found some saved news articles from 1994, when shadow passwords were
put into the C library.  The code was adapted from existing code, which
was not free.  The author threw a fit and accused, among others, Debian
and Ian Murdock for stealing his code.  (Unfairly, as far as I can tell.)

(I think the shadow code has been released under another license now,
but there's still a lot of bad feeling floating around shadow passwords
and the author.)