Re: main or contrib?

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Ben Finney writes:

> Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> writes:
>
>> Ben Finney writes:
>> > Likewise, if a program will behave markedly differently in the
>> > absence of a firmware program, to the point that it becomes
>> > useless without it, it's still the same program; but it still
>> > depends on that firmware program.
>>
>> Various programs in main behave markedly different in the absence of
>> certain proprietary network server software -- IM client programs
>> come to mind.  Do those bits need to be removed from main?
>
> That's the debate. I was merely addressing the flawed logic of
> implying that "is the same program" gives "does not depend on the
> firmware".

It is also flawed to say "it does not behave usefully in the absence
of other software X" implies "depends on that software".

Under that test, most (all?) bootloaders belong in contrib.  Likewise
many printer drivers, libgpod, gsm-utils, flexloader, and probably a
huge number of other hardware interface packages.

Michael Poole