Re: Please stop the discrimination of non-free packages
On Thu, Nov 22, 2001 at 12:56:06PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Colin Watson wrote:
>
> > This goes back to the "autobuilders don't build non-free" thing again.
> > Last time I was asked about this I was told that autobuilders sometimes
> > do go off and build non-free as the release approaches - is it about
> > time to start doing this now?
> >...
>
> We all agree on:
> - free software is better than non-free software
> - therefore free software has a higher priority for us than non-free
> software
>
> I think we should acknowledge that "although non-free software isn't a
> part of Debian, we support its use". In my eyes it's e.g. a discrimination
> that isn't needed that our autobuilder don't build non-free packages
> automatically. This prevents non-free packages from entering testing and
> therefore from getting into the next release. I can't see how free
> software benefits from this - it only causes that people have to manually
> compile these packages which costs time they might otherwise have spent on
> free software.
>
> Please stop this discrimination of non-free packages - it's enough to
> handle them with a lower priority.
Most non-free packages do not compile on anything other than i386 (since
a lot of them are binary only). Also, keeping the autobuilders pristine
means we do not have to worry about contamination, which would leak
cases of main needing non-free software to build (believe, I've caught a
few of these cases on the sparc buildd).
Besides, when I was doing all the sparc buildd work, it was enough just
to keep up with main. Why would I have wasted my time messing around
with non-free crap that could not be patched anyway?
Ben
--
.----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=-----.
/ Ben Collins -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com '
`---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
Reply to: