On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 08:19:32AM -0600, Bruce Sass wrote: > > So *every* time a package outside of main is an installation candidate > > the decision should be made, not once, very much indeed. > As someone who doesn't care about licences Since this effectively translates to not caring about the freedom of the software you install, I think it's safe to say you're in the minority among Debian users - and certainly among Debian developers. I'm confident that Debian will continue to prefer to install only free software as dependencies when installing from main, even when contrib and non-free are enabled on the system. > I disagree. The only way a non-free package is going to be automatically > selected is if the sysadmin has added non-Main lines to sources.list, and the > Maintainer has placed a non-Main package before one from Main in the > dependency statement--that's two explicit actions that need to be taken, > compared to zero if non-Main stuff isn't wanted. The latter is not something the maintainer is allowed to do, because it's making a decision for non-free software *on behalf of the user*. If the free alternative doesn't work well enough to be listed first, then the package depending on it belongs in contrib, *not* in main. > I hope Debian would honour the Social Contract and put the needs of the > users ahead of software freeness concerns in that case. Do we have a name for the DFSG equivalent of Godwin's Law? Because you just failed it. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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