Re: Removing non-free - reality check.

[Benedikt Eric Heinen <beh@icemark.ch>]

> >  "Does Debian include non-free software?"
> >  "Any of the Debian packages itself doesn't include non-free, No."
> >  "Then users can't use the packages for non-free softwares ?"
> >  "Some un-official packages in contrib can install non-free softwares
> >   very easily.  All you have to do is just to get the software, and
> >   put it on the specific place.  Then the package does all the setup
> >   magically."
> >  "Cool."
> Eventually we could hopefully remove those as well, when the time and
> technology is right.  It doesn't seem politically possible ask for it
> at the moment.

Sorry, John - nothing personal against you, but saying that contrib
can stay for a while seems rather hypocritical to me -- after all,
it's some packages in contrib that RELY on non-free software (and
not just non-"free-speech"-software, but also
non-free-speech-non-free-beer-software, like the heroesmm3 package
for instance.  If you don't see this as critical, please enlighten
me why you would have less problem with contrib?


I would tend to say, that if you want to get rid of non-free out of
the main distribution, that a similar solution we're aiming for on
non-free should also immediately be found for contrib.




Also, to clarify my previous compromise offer to create a
debian-non-free.org for the non-free software (and possibly contrib
as well):

  I would see such a compromise in one of two possible ways:
   a) just use debian-non-free.org as a separate domain hosted on
      debian.org infrastructure; which probably won't work...

   b) move debian-non-free.org to its own system somewhere. If some
      people were willing to help, I would contribute to its
      funding (contribute as in contribute to run-time costs, not 
      just contribute to once-only costs like buying a box for it).


As I wrote before, while I DO appreciate people like you trying to
"cleanse" Debian from anything not entirely free, I also DO
appreciate having access to debian-ready non-free software if I can
agree with the license tied to that software.

I respect people like RMS for what they did for the free-software
movement, but personally I don't think what we need is a holy
crusade against non-free software as the ultimate evil.



yours,


  Benedikt

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