Re: Software in main that is throughly useless without non-free software
[ Please don't Cc replies to me on public lists ]
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> writes:
> On Sun, May 02, 1999 at 12:41:14PM +0000, Edward Betts wrote:
> > > > So IRC and AOL are free clients, non-free servers with no free
> > > > alternatives,
> > >
> > > There are free IRC servers, e.g. the ircd package in main.
> >
> > Sorry, I meant ICQ not IRC.
>
> And yet there are two attempts out there to write a free ICQ server. The
> specs are published. Nobody has released one yet but so what?
>
> If the protocol is published the lack of a free server AT THE MOMENT
> should not penalize the software.
Blah. If a program, foobar, is linked against the non-free libevil,
it goes in contrib. The fact that someone is planning, writing or
even thinking about writing a libgood DFSG replacement for libevil,
does *not* mean we put foobar in the main. In the same way the fact
that there is _currently_ no free server is all that matters.
[The kind of `oh, but it'll be free RSN' attitude is exactly why we're
stuck with qmail on master; needless to say, I'm less than impressed
with it.]
--
James
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