Re: Discussion - non-free software removal

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 09:38:59PM +0000, Darren Salt wrote:
> 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.

I think that would be a terrible way to do it.  It's much better to
simply drop the package.  That way people can keep it around on their
systems for as long as they like, instead of innocently upgrading
to a dummy version.

If we want, we can always define something like a Supersedes header
to indicate which packages are improved replacements of others
(without necessarily conflicting with each other, like the Conflicts &
Replaces combination does).

Richard Braakman