Re: Bug#30739: When a tiny part of a package uses non-free libraries
> pcmcia-cs only suggests non-free/libforms0.88, however it contains
> /usr/X11R6/bin/cardinfo, which DEPENDS non-free/libforms0.88. I think
> it's DFSG violation.
While I appreciate your attention to details and pedantic advice, I
would like to point out that cardinfo is not required for PCMCIA
support. It is merely a cute little X application that monitors the
PCMCIA slots and allows the user to interactively send commands to
cardmgr, the PCMCIA card management daemon. This is why pcmcia-cs only
"suggests" libforms and does not "depend" on or "recommend" it.
According to current Debian policy, a package must be placed in contrib
if it "depends" on or "recommends" a non-free package. It does not
require packages that "suggest" a non-free package to be moved to
contrib.
> I think cardinfo should go in contrib, cardinfo should be removed or
> someone should develop DFSG free utility like cardinfo.
First, I would like to say that your third alternative is definitely
the best. Are there any volunteers to port cardinfo to use a DFSG-free
library? If given such a utility, I'll place it in the pcmcia-cs
package and dump the libforms-based cardinfo.
Otherwise, I don't think that anything needs to be changed, however.
Splitting cardinfo into its own package is a bad case of excessive
package fragmentation, in my opinion. Cardinfo comes from the same
upstream sources as the rest of the PCMCIA utilities, it is a small
program, and it will never be used without having the rest of the
PCMCIA support programs installed. Therefore, I don't think that it
merits its own package. Having an extra 24k of support data for a 12k
program seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Unless someone strongly objects, I shall close this bug report as I
consider it not to be a bug.
Brian
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