Re: Proposal
Marcus.Brinkmann writes:
> Getting as much free software on CD as possible is something that I
> consider of high value (it really saves money for us who are living in
> such a country).
There is no reason why the CD vendor can't add back packages that are
missing from the Debian site he mirrors solely because they depend on
packages illegal at its location. We could make this easy by putting
packages with unmet dependencies is a special directory.
> The installation program knows about the situation and can inform the
> user about strategies to solve it (for example, adding a mirror from
> another country to the sources list of apt). Just being silent about it
> is more annoying and confusing to the user, IMHO.
Just because the package itself is absent from a CD doesn't mean that the
install software can't know about it and suggest strategies for getting
it.
> Maybe there are some users who can use the sources to start from there to
> something they can use in their country. Why do you want to prevent this
> possibility in the first place?
I don't see that we are doing so.
> Removing perfectly free software seems to be against this goal...
I'm only proposing to remove it from those Debian sites where its
dependencies cannot be satisfied. Debian is the union of all the Debian
sites around the world. There is no reason why a CD must be an exact copy
of the archive on any particular Debian site. Cd's could contain
unrestricted packages with dependencies that are missing due to local
restrictions, and the install software could warn the user about this and
suggest strategies.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
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