Re: Bug#353277: ndiswrapper in main (was: Bug#353277: should be in contrib)
On Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 03:36:16PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 09:01:40PM -0800, Adam McKenna wrote:
> > IMHO, the main purpose of contrib is to avoid shipping things on CD that
> > depend on programs in non-free. It is not a section that we put programs in
> > in order to 'punish' them for depending on non-free code.
>
> That's a mistaken view; the purpose of contrib is to give us a place
> to ship free software that we can't ship in Debian proper (ie, main)
> because it would violate "We will never make the system require the use
> of a non-free component" or, historically, "... we will never make the
> system depend on an item of non-free software".
Practically, it's to avoid shipping things on our CDs that depend on stuff
that's not on our CDs. In this case, even in the absence of free NDIS
drivers, one could argue that the utility of having ndiswrapper in main
(especially if it is integrated into the install) outweighs any potential
drawbacks (and since the only drawback I can see is pissing off
zealots/fundamentalists, I'd be all for it.) Thankfully, there is no need
to make that argument, since at least one free NDIS driver exists (the
aforementioned CIPE).
> > ndiswrapper doesn't depend (in a control file sense) on stuff in non-free,
>
> The "Depends:" field isn't really that relevant.
What is relevant is that ndiswrapper technically meets all requirements for
inclusion into main. Did I miss a solid argument refuting that assertion?
--Adam
--
Adam McKenna <adam@debian.org> <adam@flounder.net>
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