Organizing "non-free"
> > Sorry to bother you again, but I thought non-free was precisely for
> > packages which may not be sold on CDs. Now I am confused.
>
> You're not the only one. For example, shareware programs can be "sold" on CD
> but require payment for use. I'd be more specific, but I can't get to
> "master" at the moment. I'd better send Simon a note...
This is one of the things I would like to improve about non-free's
organization. It would be a "Good Thing" (tm) in my opinion to at least
differentiate between "non-free to distribute" and "non-free to use".
CD-Rom makers could then just leave out the "non-free to distribute"
stuff and press the rest. All of the "non-free to use" could actually be
merged in with the rest of the distribution as far as Debian is concerned.
It might be nice to keep it separate, though, to make it easy for the user
to see which packages are and which are not free to use.
You could drop the "non-free to distribute" stuff completely from Debian, or
put ReadMe files in as with kermit. CD makers would then not have to do
anything but copy everything directly to their masters and start the presses.
Done that way, only things currently distributable by FTP but not CD would be
dropped from the distribution. To be honest, I never really understood the
wisdom in allowing FTP but not CD distribution, but hey... I'm a for-pay
s/w developer, so what do I know. <grin>
This, of course, does not solve the problems with pgp and the like that
are only "non-free to distribute" under some circumstances. Those calls
will have to be made by each distributer (whether by FTP or CD), but it
would be nice if the main Debian archive had everything.
> Yes, I know. I'm thinking about how Debian should be differentiating itself
> from the commercial Linux distributions. One way would be for the system to
> be _entirely_ free software, since they are all picking up commercial
> software on their CDs. I have previously been a champion of the non-free
> software in Debian, but I am re-thinking my position on it.
It is my opinion that, if you in any way restrict what can be "Debian", then
you will ultimately restrict both your user base and your developer base.
Survival depends on user base. Being first is the best, being better helps,
restricting your users when they move to your system is death.
Users, in general, do not care about distributability. They only care
whether they are allowed to use something. Many don't even care about that.
Brian
( bcwhite@verisim.com )
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In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not.
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