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Re: [PROPOSED] Change package relations policy to remove references to non-free from main



Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk> writes:

> I would encourage people to reread sections 4 and 5 of the social
> contract.  Debian *acknowledges* the existence of non-free software,
> and "We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of programs
> that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines."  So are we
> going to make life difficult for them by removing the suggests
> information?

I *acknowledge* all kinds of things that I'm very unhappy about.  I
acknowledge that HIV kills lots of people.  That acknowledgement is
the recognition of a fact, not an approval of that fact, and certainly
not a decision to help the fact continue in reality.

I like the change to the policy document in question.  A reasonable
compromise though would be to allow Suggests of non-free packages only
through a virtual package intermediary.  Then people can switch to a
free alternative easily as soon as one is available, instead of
(continuing!) to have important parts of Debian essentially dependent
on (say) netscape.

Thomas


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