On Sun, May 09, 1999 at 04:26:20AM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote: > I think the question is this: > > If a program has a free license, but cannot actually be used > except to communicate with some non-free software > running on another site, should such a program be allowed > to go in main? > > I think that it is ok to put those programs in main, because they > don't require you to *have non-free software on your machine*. The > license of the server that you talk with doesn't directly affect you, > because that server is on someone else's machine. [... Some interesting reasons I hadn't thought of ...] Actually, your reasons have slightly changed my mind a bit. You've managed to hit on why these things actually depend on non-free servers. That they do is bad of course (I never disputed that) however it strengthens my convictions that such packages must be allowed where they currently are, in main. Those three examples you offered, at least one of them is generally a good thing (free servers that happen to have some exclusive data or content). That much is a given I think. Your other two points, well, I can see why unpublished mods to a server should be allowed, but then the question becomes should a client that was designed to work (only) with this modified server change how it should be treated? I see now the point james and aj were trying to make (I didn't before which made arguing their points rather difficult), however I believe my stance on the matter is still the right one, just for different reasons. When it comes to servers we can't objectively draw a line after free servers with exclusive content, after servers based on free software but with unpublished modifications to their site, and before servers which are just not free. We could try of course, but it would still boil down to a subjective decision. [ Beyond here gets off the topic of the thread above and relates to an older thread had on other lists.. ] > I think that the questions I raised a few months ago--how to treat the > packages that are not in main, whether Debian installation will invite > the user to install them--make more of a difference. I still don't totally agree with you on these matters, however I am willing to accept them once a few other changes are made. Examples of what I mean are non-us, it's about to be broken up into main, contrib, and non-free like the rest of the distribution. Things such as giflib which are free but restricted by nasty US patents (isn't that one going to expire soon?) should move to non-us/main, and much of the stuff in contrib now but only because it uses non-us stuff will go into main (though whether main or non-us/main nobody's figured out yet). Once some of these changes happen I will be less objectionable to a number of the changes you'd like to see us make. I'm still not keen on moving contrib and non-free out of the Debian tree as a practical matter (/pub/linux/distributions/redhat, /pub/linux/distributions/debian, /pub/linux/distributions/not-debian ? Erm, no..) but I actually think moving those dists out of debian/dists/whatever is a good thing. I can also support having apt's sources.list be something like this: # Something about this being sources.list and pointin you at # sources.list(5) for info on its format # # The general outline of an entry for http: # deb http://your.server/mirror release dist dist .... deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable main # The general idea of how to do a local mirror: # deb file:/your/mirror/here/debian stable main contrib non-free # Mention that these things below here aren't part of Debian and if the # user wants them they'll have to uncomment them. #deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable contrib non-free #deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable contrib non-free (I write wonderful comments don't I? heh!) That sort of thing anyway. The stuff that's contrib/non-free would be there but it would require a conscious effort on the part of the user to enable the software to see those things. -- Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer PGP: E8D68481E3A8BB77 8EE22996C9445FBE The Source Comes First! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Domination, of course. And scantily clad females. Who cares if its twenty below? -- Linus Torvalds
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