Re: Non-free package licenses and replacements
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> said:
> In linux.debian.legal, Niklas Vainio <niklas.vainio@iki.fi> writes:
>
>> Now I'm asking for suggestions for replacements and comments on whether
>> some packages should be either moved to main or removed completely
>> because of the license or what kind of changes to the license we could
>> suggest to upstream.
>
>> The page is at http://www.iki.fi/nvainio/debian/non-free.html
>
[...]
> [doc-rfc-*]
> The RFC packages could be replaced for most people by an installer that
> downloads the RFCs from an archive or mirror if they want a local copy.
> The only people who would then be left out would be people without network
> connectivity. (Alternately, they could just be removed from the archive;
> it's not particularly hard to get them if wanted.)
Putting in main a package whose only purpose is to install proprietary
software is making a joke of main.
Even if Microsoft Office was freely downloadable for Unix, would an
installer for it fit in main?
And what is an installer? A script that do a wget + dpkg -i?
Reinventing badly apt-get in order to put non-free inside main? We
could put such installer for any non-free software inside main, this
is a trick, not a long-run solution.
For the RFCs, if Debian cannot live with different degree of freedom
depending on the nature of the software it brings (RFC are not
programs, and by nature, there is no point in being able to modify
freely a standard like RFCs), the only way to go for Debian is to stop
distributing completely RFCs.
--
Mathieu Roy
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