Re: pine (was: Re: debian-faq: patch5 to remove some outdated content)
On Mon, May 09, 2016 at 08:50:25PM +0200, Holger Wansing wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Andrzej Bylicki <anpaby5@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Per notable examples, I would also mention the broadcom-sta driver
> > (non-free, but available as source code, pulled from upstream [Broadcom])
> > and the Adobe Flash plugin (non-free and only available as binary 'blob',
> > pulled from upstream [Adobe]).
> >
> > Broadcom wireless adapters are popular and Flash is still being used in
> > combination with Firefox/Iceweasel.
> >
> > Would those be OK?
>
> It might be useful, to document these two szenarios, so here we go:
>
>
> <p>Due to restrictions in their licenses source code may or may not
> be available for packages in the "contrib" and "non-free" directories,
> which are not formally part of the Debian system.
> There are some packages, for which the source code is available,
> but not distributable via the Debian archive, so it has to be pulled
> from the site of the origin author or company when installing.
> Examples for this case are the <tt>broadcom-sta-*</tt> packages, a
> driver for Broadcom wireless adapters.
> Moreover to this, the source code might not be available at all
> and only a binary "blob" is distributed by the origin company.
> A notable example for this is the Adobe Flash plugin in the
> <tt>flashplugin-nonfree</tt> package.
>
>
> Comments?
But was the mention of nvidia dropped deliberately or accidentally?
Is nvidia not one of these binary blob packages? Or was it just a
matter of the paragraph being long enough already?
-- hendrik
>
> Maybe from Justin regarding the grammar? ;-)
I have no problems with the grammar. But then I'm Canadian, not
English, and English is actually my second languge (albeit the one
I know best).
-- hendrik
>
>
> Holger
>
>
> > ~Andy Mender
> >
> > On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 8:44 PM, Holger Wansing <linux@wansing-online.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Hendrik Boom <hendrik@topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
> > > > On Sat, May 07, 2016 at 09:45:43PM +0200, Holger Wansing wrote:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > Justin B Rye <justin.byam.rye@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > Joost van Baal-Ilić wrote:
> > > > > > > Holger Wansing wrote:
> > > > > > >> <p>Some packages are only distributed as source code due
> > > to the restrictions
> > > > > > >> in their licenses. Notably, one such package is
> > > <tt>pine</tt>, see
> > > > > > >> <ref id="pine"> for more information.
> > > > > > >>
> > > > > > >> So if we remove pine from the doc, we need another example for
> > > such
> > > > > > >> nonfree software, which is only allowed to be distributed as
> > > source code.
> > > > > > >> Is anyone aware of such software?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > publicfile. There is
> > > https://packages.debian.org/publicfile-installer .
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Except that publicfile isn't an example "only distributed as source
> > > > > > code". Debian doesn't distribute even that much - instead the
> > > > > > installer package *fetches* that code from upstream.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hmm, if there are only few of such packages, that topic is probably not
> > > > > worth a frequently asked question (FAQ)?
> > > > > So skip the whole sentence?
> > > >
> > > > Isn't one of those packages nvidia's own drivers? That is, at least,
> > > > an important one, and may be worth a mention.
> > >
> > > That's mostly covered by the next sentence, I think:
> > >
> > > <p>Source code may or may not be available for packages in the "contrib"
> > > and "non-free" directories, which are not formally part of the Debian
> > > system.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > We could enhance that a bit, maybe:
> > >
> > > <p>Due to restrictions in their licenses
> > > source code may or may not be available for packages in the "contrib"
> > > and "non-free" directories, which are not formally part of the Debian
> > > system.
> > > Notable examples for this are <tt>nvidia-*</tt> driver packages.
> > >
> > > Does such text fit for the nvidia drivers packages?
> > >
>
>
>
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