NF Compromise - Alternatives Nagging + planned removal date warning
On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 11:25:23PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
>
> 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).
>
Me too - but it seems that one of reasons non-free is a big problem is
that many people don't know about the alternatives.
So howabout adding control file statements like:
in pine/debian/control FreeAlternatives: mutt,...
in mutt/debian/control FreeReplaces: pine
and maybe:
in pine/debian/control ToBeRemoved: < 3.2, 31-06-2003
Then when ever you select pine, dselect/aptitude/... can flag up a page
saying
"Did you know there are totally free alternatives to ....
such as .... Oh and by the way, since ... is not totally free
it may be removed from the archive any time in the future."
And then whenever a non-free pacakge is upgraded there could be a
debconf message:
"This package holds a program that is not truely free. But
there are free alternatives that you really should look at
such as ... This pacakge may be removed from the archive at
any time in the future."
Of course the "Any time" could be replaced with the specific
date/version in the ToBeRemoved flag.
Seems this would:
1) Provide for those that still need non-free
2) Not shaft those that are still using non-free
3) Encourage (nag) the above to use or find free alternatives
Personally I would be sad to see non-free removed right off - much of
what is in it now has good non-free alternatives - but not all of it.
And I think we'd be doing a big dis-service to our users.
Just a possible compromise that I like more and more as I think it
through.
--
Paul
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