Re: Are DFSG free package in non-us part of Debian?
Davide G. M. Salvetti wrote:
> MS> However due to lame crypto law it still cannot go into main and
> MS> thus no package in main may depend/recommend on/ it.
>
> I do understand it's a difficult situation, but what I don't
> understand is that you are unwilling to consider alternative
> solutions. We may work toward a dependence design that warns the CD
Please propose alternative solutions.
> user that some selected package depends on some other package which is
> not on his CD for some reason, asking him to confirm selection (if he
> happens to have another CD with that package) or not. It's a
This is the wrong way. This will destroy the well thought dependency
system of Debian. We have dependencies and recommends because package
need other packages. We cannot break this or we will end up in a
screwed system. Dependencies and Recommends exist for a reason, not
for the time being.
> Consider this paragraph of the DFSG:
>
> >--------------------------------------------------------------------<
> 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
>
> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
> program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not
> restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being
> used for genetic research.
> >--------------------------------------------------------------------<
>
> Why do you think it's there? Now, suppose that some country declared
> genetic research illegal (this is not even unlikely and maybe already
> true for some country c in {country of the world}). For the sake of
> speculation, suppose that you happen to have genetic research software
> in main. Or, suppose that some country forbids physics research,
> maybe because its people think that physics research is against their
> religion (I'm Italian, you know, maybe you recall of a certain man
> named Galileo Galilei (which BTW lived in the same city I presently
> live in, i.e. Pisa), that happened to face this very problem).
> Following your line of reasoning we should simply kick that software
> out of main. Excuse me to be so explicit, this sounds to me like
> plain nonsense.
You forgot that at the same time I was proposing to open non-IT to
carry the package. If the package would stay in main Debian would
not be able to be used, sold, copied etc. in italy. Do you want
that? I don't. What's the solution for this? Currently I can
only see to remove the packages in question out of main and move
them into a different repository. This will ensure Debian won't
be legal in a country c and that their inhabitants can benefit from
this fine collection of free software.
> - non-US mixes free and not free packages, thus hides the real
> status of them; I don't know of others, but to me it's very
> important to know if a package is free or not, before installing
> it on my system. I find this inconvenient;
Since non-US has grown alas, I agree that this is a problem. However
solving this would make the whole situation more complicated.
Regards,
Joey
--
The MS-DOS filesystem is nice for removable media. -- H. Peter Anvin
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