Re: stability of non-free?
On Sun, 27 Oct 1996 Dirk.Eddelbuettel@qed.econ.queensu.ca wrote:
>
> Yves> We definitely have to do something regarding this problem. I think
> Yves> that non-free is definitely part of the Debian system, and favors
> Yves> option 1 (free/non-free inside the debian stable/unstable hierarchy).
> Yves> What do you think ?
>
> Dale> I disagree. The whole purpose of non-free is to divorce those
> Dale> packages from the distribution. Non-free has nothing to do with
> Dale> stable vs unstable.
>
> I disagree with the disagreement. Of course has non-free something with
> stable or not: Whether code is new and untested (hence "unstable") or old and
> tested (hence "stable") has nothing to do with the entire legal matters
> (which are therefore orthogonal to implementation aspects) of the copyright.
I agree with your last statement. The issues in the non-free directory are
completely orthogonal to the issues of stable/unstable. It is exactly
because of this orthogonality that I do not believe there should be an
additional breakdown imposed on this section.
On a somewhat other note: There are currently some 60 packages in
non-free. A better task than re-organizing would be to focus on getting
the developers of these packages to change their copyright to allow free
distribution.
It has been pointed out, the distinction between stable and unstable
appears to be an oxymoron to some. We might be better served by not trying
to identify any tree as stable/unstable, but instead only have fixed (as
in unchanging except for bugfixes) and development (the one currently
being built).
Luck,
Dwarf
------------ --------------
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Black Creek Critters e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net
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