Re: Software in main that is throughly useless without non-free software

[Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@trick.fig.org>]

[Note: I'm not advocating tossing packages out of `main', I'm arguing
that we should make a symlinked-to-`main' distro called `pure'.  See
my proposal.]

>>>>> Karl M Hegbloom writes:

 KMH>  We've accepted that the Linux kernel itself can go into [pure],
 KMH> even though it's got support for non-freed proprietary
 KMH> filesystems.

Yes, because it can also read and write free filesystems, so it
doesn't *require* a non-freed filesystem to be useful.

 KMH>  So why not a reader for Word documents?

Only if the reader can also read documents produced by software found
in `main'.  Otherwise, that reader *requires* non-main software (MS
Word) in order to be useful.

-- 
 Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@fig.org>  //\ I'm a FIG (http://www.fig.org/)
Committed to freedom and diversity \// I use GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)