Chad Walstrom wrote: ...
refuse work from a commercial software provider. What it does mean is that software that doesn't fall under the DFSG's definition of Free will not be found on Debian archives.
... redhatize debian? create the hell of dependencies?important (crucial?) advantage of debian is that when I apt-get install something the QA of debian is behind it and there's reasonable assurance that it will not screw the system, that the dependencies will be resolved etc. from experience I can see it is working fairly well, even in unstable.
as soon as you start moving out certain programs out of debian to various other repositories these automatically become chaotical garbage generators.
realistically - if it's in debian (maintained by debian developers etc.) then apt-get install is the method to use to do the installation. If it's on some vendor's site then it goes into /opt/package-version.
in other words - it's not a convenience to have third party debs (just look at redhat).
erik