This has come up before. It was decided then that non-free is there because it is software that is NOT part of Debian. Essentially, being placed in non-free which is hard to package on CD-ROM is the price these packages pay for being non-free. We don't WANT to make it easy to use non-free software, which is why we haven't split non-free. We don't want to make it unreasonably hard either, which is why we allow non-free and contrib sections to begin with. We just don't want non-free software associated with Debian. If we split non-free as you describe, we'd be essentially giving in to non-free software and it would be on everyone's CDs. Nobody would bother with "official" images either, and that has already proven to be a mess. If someone else thinks this explanation is not suitable, you're welcome to toss in your 01 (two bits). On Fri, Sep 11, 1998 at 03:59:40PM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: > > It seems there are a lot of problems with the non-free section, for instance > CDROM vendors who do not bother to check every licence individually and who > exclude the whole non-free tree. Basically, it comes from the fact that > non-free gathers packages which have very different reasons to be non-free. > > One of the authors of a package I intent to manage said (the package can be > distributed and used without fee but cannot be resold so I'll have to upload > in non-free): > > >I suggest you change the "non-free" to be two sections, one being > >"free-but-cannot-be-resold". Otherwise you will have to put it in non-free. > >If it was in "free-but-cannot-be-resold" then people would know that it > >was as cost-free to them as in "free". > > It seems that, for CDROM resellers or mirror sites, the most intelligent split of free would be instead between "non-free-but-can-be-put-on-CDROM" and "non-free-other"? > > I assume this discussion was already held, so if someone can explain. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-request@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org > > >
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