Re: [SUMMARY] packages useless without non-free servers? (Was: a giant flamewar that's gotten hot as hell itself!)

[Ben Gertzfield <che@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

    Richard> I think that the best basic policy is that a package can
    Richard> go in `main' if it doesn't require any non-free software
    Richard> *on your machine*.  Making use of non-free software on
    Richard> another machine is unfortunate but does not put you in
    Richard> the same moral dilemma as having it on your own machine.

This is an excellent basic policy, but how far does the definition of
"software *on your machine*" extend?

Are ROM images, which are required for Macintosh, Commodore 64, and
other emulators, software? There's generally no source code available
for those beasties. But you're required to have them *on your machine*
in order to have the emulators work.

Is this any different than, say, LILO only being able to run on a
machine with a non-free BIOS? You have to legally purchase the BIOS,
for which no source code is available, before you can use LILO (or
Linux, for that matter!) -- does this make LILO non-free?

To complicate matters, it's *possible* to buy a hardware card for a
standard IBM-compatible PC with the Macintosh ROMs on it. Does this
make a DFSG-free Macintosh emulator go into main? contrib? non-free?

Ben

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