Re: Discussion - non-free software removal

[Darren Salt <linux@youmustbejoking.demon.co.uk>]

I demand that Derek Gladding may or may not have written...

[snip]
> May I make a suggestion from the perspective of a someone who is currently
> using non-free but would be very happy indeed with an all-Free distribution
> if it could do all the same things ?

> If the intention of the proposed GR, or at least part of the intention, is
> to promote "the progress of Free Software" then I would suggest that it
> would be more effective if it stated that non-free would be dropped at some
> clearly-defined and not too close point in the future (6 months from now, 1
> year from now, next release, whatever...).

Better would be to remove those packages from non-free for which there are
free equivalents. To help the transition, said free equivalent(s) must be
available in stable before the non-free package(s) in question can be
removed.

I suggest that the removal is implemented by replacement with a dummy
package which depends on one of the free equivalents and which will be
present in (at least) the next stable release; a bug should be filed for the
removal of the dummy package in time for a subsequent stable release.

-- 
| Darren Salt       | nr. Ashington, | linux (or ds) at
| Linux PC, Risc PC | Northumberland | youmustbejoking
| No Wodniws here   | Toon Army      | demon co uk
|   Running woody on the other machine.

So many lawyers, so few bullets.