Michael Poole wrote: > Josh Triplett writes: >>If the ICQ server were packaged in the Debian non-free section, would >>you make ICQ clients Depends: or Recommends: on the ICQ server? If not, >>then if the ICQ server were packaged, the ICQ client would still be in >>main. Therefore, the ICQ client can be in main. > > A, ergo B, ergo A. Please explain why you think my argument is circular. I have argued that: (1) If the ICQ server were packaged in non-free, we still wouldn't make the client Depends:, Recommends:, or Build-Depends: on the server, and therefore in that situation the ICQ client could be in main. (2) For the purposes of deciding if software can be in main in the presence of possible unexpressed dependencies on external "too free for non-free" software, we should take the same actions we would if the non-free software were packaged in non-free and the dependencies were expressed. (3) As a concrete instance of (2), for the purposes of deciding if an ICQ client can be in main in the presence of possible unexpressed dependencies on an ICQ server, we should take the actions we would if the server were packaged in non-free. By (1), that action would be to leave the ICQ client in main. Therefore we should leave the ICQ client in main. >>In general, Debian doesn't make clients for a network protocol depend on >>servers for that protocol. I think that's a perfectly reasonable >>policy, given that you could run the server elsewhere, not on the local >>machine. > > How can I run an ICQ server? Until the answer is "install this > package from Debian," I believe that the only way to interpret the > DFSG consistent with your argument is to move the ICQ client to > contrib. Right now, we don't require clients to Depends:, Recommends:, or Build-Depends: on servers. >>Similarly, consider if the firmware were packaged in non-free. If the >>device didn't require the driver to load firmware, the driver would at >>most Suggests: firmware, and could go to main. If the driver must load >>the firmware, the driver Depends: or Recommends: firmware, so the driver >>can't be in main. > > This establishes at most an indirect dependency on the firmware: The > driver depends on the device which depends on the firmware. Since > Debian cannot express the second dependency, you insist that it > express "driver depends on firmware." You inconvenience the owner of > the device simply because their device has a certain characteristic. Not at all. The driver uses the request_firmware interface to make hotplug supply the firmware, and the driver won't work unless the firmware exists. The hardware is designed to require the driver to load the firmware. It is the task of the driver to load this firmware, and the driver cannot perform this task with out the firmware. I don't believe there is any indirection there; the driver should Depends: firmware, and it only doesn't because the firmware isn't packaged. Are you disagreeing with my argument that the driver would Depends: firmware if the firmware were packaged, or are you disagreeing with the idea that we should treat the "firmware too non-free for non-free" case the same as the "firmware packaged in non-free" case for the purposes of deciding if the driver goes in main? > This is identical to the ICQ case: The client depends on the server > (service) which depends on the server (software). Debian cannot > express the second dependency, so following your approach, we must > insist "client software depends on server software." Except that Debian doesn't express the first dependency either, even when it would be possible to do so. - Josh Triplett
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