Re: ITP plex86, if it complies to DFSG
On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 11:23:38PM -0800, ferret@phonewave.net wrote:
> Right. The question I didn't exactly ask is if BIOS images, which are
> explicitely freely distributable for a specific emulator (not necessarily
> WITH a specific emulator; that would intrude on the packager's perrogative
> to split out common elements and avoid duplication) but without source,
> should be treated with the slightly relaxed standards of device firmware,
> or should be treated as regular software. I can see approximately equal
> valid reasons for choosing either standard. You seem to be saying that
> BIOS for emulators should be fully open-source.
Well, I thought that was our position in the past. Somebody else has
posted to say that vice is in contrib because the ROMs it needs
are not even freely distributable, let alone open source.
The ROMs for x48 aren't freely distributable either (they are
copyright Hewlett-Packard) and it's in main.
If nothing else I would like consistency. x48 is not usable as is,
and ROMs are not freely available on the Internet (or not
legally anyway); you must download them from your own calculator.
So does it belong in main? Doubtful. But I think x48 is an
even more extreme case than plex86, where at least the ROMs
are available.
It's a good question, especially when you consider firmware etc.
It seems different some how, but it probably isn't really.
I don't think we can really say they are just data; otherwise
we could claim the binaries for netscape, acroread and the
rest of the software in non-free are just data too, and
ship them in main.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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