On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 11:07:04PM -0500, Mike Dresser wrote: > On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Clearly, 2.7% is too high a threshhold for some. How small shall the > > propotion get before we're not screwing our users by dumping non-free? > > 2.5%? 2.0% 1.5%? 1.0% 0.001%? > > Replace my beloved pine, and I'll start using mpg321 instead, and I'm all > set :D I switched from pine to mutt a few years ago, and did not find it difficult. Back then I didn't even know about the pine-ish keybinding muttrc phenomenon (maybe remapping keys wasn't even supported in mutt 0.59 or whatever it was -- it was long time ago). By many standards, mutt is *already* a pine replacement (not to mention elm-me, mh, evolution, kmail, etc. etc. etc.), plus there's the problem that we already can't ship modified pine binaries, even in non-free, because of the license. So, what *are* you really using non-free for? Just because vrms lists it doesn't mean you can get it from Debian. For instance, I still had pgp-us listed. "apt-get --reinstall install pgp-us" told me that even if Debian scrapped non-free today, I wouldn't be any *worse* off with regard to that package, because Debian already got rid of it. Anyway, what concerns me about the demands that non-free be kept until there is a "replacement" in free is exactly the argument you're proposing. You want much more than just a replacement -- you want a clone. That's setting the bar awfully high. With that logic people wouldn't migrate from Windows to Linux in the first place. -- G. Branden Robinson | Religion is regarded by the common Debian GNU/Linux | people as true, by the wise as branden@debian.org | false, and by the rulers as useful. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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