Re: Bug#353277: ndiswrapper in main
On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 10:16:38PM +0000, Stephen Gran wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Thomas Bushnell BSG said:
> > I think this is clearly incorrect. The DFSG and the SC do not say
> > anything about the requirements for main that I can see.
>
> This is a clear misunderstanding, AFAICT. Point 1 of the SC says that "We
> will never make the system require the use of a non-free component", and
> the DFSG define the difference between free and non-free. Since require
> in the technical sense is expressed through dependencies (although I
> have seen someone assert with explanation that package dependencies don't
> matter here, for some reason), it is rather clear to me that ndiswrapper
Actual dependencies are not always expressed in debian/control, because
sometimes a required item is not packaged. (This is one of the reasons
why a package would go into contrib.)
For example, flashplugin-nonfree requires the non-free flash plugin from
Macromedia to provide its functionality. That plugin is not packaged
(hence the need for the installer, flashplugin-nonfree) so clearly this
dependency cannot be expressed in the control file.
flashplugin-nonfree itself contains scripts which I presume meet the
DFSG. Do you think we should put it in main?
> ndiswrapper is a piece of free software. It does not need non-free tools
> to build, and it will execute as a standalone app without any drivers.
(And do what? Display a usage screen? Anything more?)
> The fact that most people use it to enable non-free drivers to work is
> largely irrelevant - most people use wine and various other emulators
> for similar purposes.
This is also true of flashplugin-nonfree.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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