Re: Seconded, sponsored. (was Re: General Resolution: Removing non-free)

[tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:

> why? while i think that vrms is a good and useful piece of software,
> i can also see that those who don't approve of it would see it as
> irritating nag-ware. i don't see any need to spam our users by
> automatically installing software that nags them with a moralising
> message.
> 
> if people choose to install it, that's fine. if not, then it's spamware.
> 
> (the obvious response "just tell people to uninstall it of they don't
> like it" deserves about as much respect as "this is not spam, click here
> to unsubscribe")

You are forgetting context here.

You claimed there was no advantage to removing non-free.

I listed three, one of which was to make sure users understood that
non-free was not part of Debian, and invited you to suggest other
methods of acheiving that result.

You said it was impossible, and I listed two.  Now you say it's
"nagware".  Well, yes it is, but it is also possible.  But there is
still a problem: that users don't know that non-free is not part of
Debian, and everything is organized to make it easy for them to make
that mistake.

> > Only put `main' in the default sources.list.
> 
> why?
> 
> non-free software won't go away just by pretending it doesn't exist.
> sticking your head in the sand (and worse, forcing everyone else's head
> into the sand with you) wont help at all.

But that's not the goal, again, please remember the context.  If you
can't keep track of context from one post to the next, you should cast
your vote and leave the debating to others.

The reason to remove non-free from the default sources is not to
"pretend it doesn't exist" but to make sure that users know that
non-free is not part of Debian.  

> > It could be that I'm still confused, so if you would write more on
> > this issue it would help me.
> 
> there are dependancies from non-free to main, but none from main to
> non-free. nothing in main may ever depend on anything outside of main -
> that's part of the definition of main.

Are we allowed to remove things in main which are only used by
non-free, and are no longer useful outside that context?