Re: [PROPOSED] Change package relations policy to remove references to non-free from main
Wichert Akkerman <wichert@cistron.nl> writes:
> Previously Chris Waters wrote:
> > The problem with the "Enhances" idea (which several people, including
> > me, mentioned at the time) is that it puts the responsibility on the
> > wrong package.
> Yes and no. It's actually a nice addition to the current sent of
> relations since we had no way for this kind of reverse relation.
Hmm, ok. I'm not convinced that there'll ever be any real[*] need to
do so, but I agree that adding the capability does no harm.
[*] that is to say, technical, rather than political.
> It's true that for some of the existing relations replacing Suggests
> with Recommends puts the responsibility on the wrong package. However
(ITYM Enhances, not Recommends)
> a reverse relation is the only way to completely remove references
> to non-main packages from main, which is what this proposal is all
> about.
If that's what it's about, then it fails miserably. For example, I
mention a couple of non-free packages in the description of one of my
packages. Nothing you do with the other fields is going to have any
effect on that. Source, binaries, documentation, description -- this
proposal has no effect on references to non-main packages from any of
those places.
If we're really going to ban all references to non-main stuff, we
should ban them from binaries too, since those are the references that
really matter.
> We want to be able to have a completely free system and be
> able to say "here, you can use this and you'll be happy. You don't
> need anything that's not free at all". If we put weaken Suggest or
> create a new weaker version of it we don't do that since we still
> tell people that there are non-free packages that can improve things.
People can anyway -- I do. I don't suggest non-free packages (that
does seem wrong to me), but I do list non-free packages in the
description field. I trust you're not suggesting that we ban this as
well!
A quieter form of "Suggests:" might actually hide these dependencies
*better* than putting them in the description field, because dselect
doesn't list dependencies unless you press `i'. But it always shows
the description.
So, the proposal is technically inferior, and doesn't meet it's
political goals. (Dubious political goals, I must say -- it smacks of
denying free speech to those who oppose free speech, which you can't
do without opposing free speech yourself.)
However, despite the fact that it's ineffectual and (IMO) misguided, I
think the proposal is innocuous, so I'm not objecting. I just want to
make sure people don't expect more from this proposal than it can
deliver, and don't delude themselves that it makes the idea of a
weaker Suggests useless. A weaker Suggests would still benefit the
system, far more than this does.
cheers
--
Chris Waters xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
or xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr | this .signature file.
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