Re: Proposing a debian-contrib net...

[Eray Ozkural <exa@ttnet.net.tr>]

Roland Rosenfeld wrote:
> 
> 
> > So Debian finally gets to shed its last vestiges of non-free-ness
> > (which I agree with, even if I still have a need for some of that
> > non-free software), and people who want the non-free stuff get to
> > keep it in circulation.  Just add another line to sources.list and
> > away you go.
> 
> It sounds easy, but there are many drawbacks with this.  It's not only
> adding this line to sources.list.
> 

It isn't. Consider the lame situation with KDE. I hate KDE. I don't like
coders who imitate others' stuff blindly. It looks so windows. But it's
convenient for a lot of people. And yeah, he isn't the first brilliant
person who thought of that. This is an example of just another sources.list
line

deb http://kde.tdyc.com/ potato kde kde2 contrib rkrusty

What do you get in the end? A lot of stuff that doesn't fit well into
the rest of the system. I wouldn't like netscape packages to be like
that.

Now, I think we all agree on the benefits of free software, and that
the right to modify the code is good, and blah blah. But OTOH, who
cares about KDE? I personally don't. I wouldn't spend a minute on its
source code. So would *not* a newbie user. Then I suggest the following:
if a non-free program is useful enough, then it is included in the
non-free section without hesitation. And sure, the binaries must be
distributable, etc. I suppose Debian can't even distribute KDE binaries
at the moment, right? If we can distribute some part of KDE binaries, then
we forget about the source, and just distribute the binaries. Take
note, this is just an example. ;) 

So I think the proposal to defer the contents of non-free section to
unofficial sources is not well planned. On the contrary, I think there
isn't enough non-free software that we're distributing _perhaps_, so we
should be looking for more of the useful non-free stuff. Of course, if
there is a superior free alternative, then no one might want to do that.
But in case *all* free alternatives are inferior, and there is a distributable
binary, etc., etc., by all means package it and put it in non-free. I
mean, leave it to maintainers' decision, and don't touch the non-free section; it
works.

Thanks,

-- 
 ++++-+++-+++-++-++-++--+---+----+----- ---  --  -  - 
 +  Eray "exa" Ozkural                   .      .   .  . . .
 +  CS, Bilkent University, Ankara             ^  .  o   .      .
 |  mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr                .  ^  .   .