Re: FHS, netscape and Dan Bernstein

[John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu>]

Are we talking djbdns?  Then there's also the security issue to deal with.
Bind's full of holes, and we can't reliably state that Debian will be "in
the loop" on Vixie's 'leet fix0rs list.  Right now, dismissing out of hand
ANY bind alternative cannot be done in good conscience.  Historically, it
seems as if the FHS takes precedence over source: pine, any Bernstein
program, some Knuth programs (all deemed undistributable) versus Netscape,
Realplayer, various X servers (nvidia eg), seti@home, pretty much anything
with an installer in contrib (either non-free or contrib).  I really
question the wisdom of this: shouldn't an open source half a loaf be
better than a binary-only slice of bread?  The only real issues I see here
are the collective inertia of Debian refusing to admit that they might
have been biased since the '90s WRT
free-as-in-free-beer-but-not-free-as-in-free-speech software and the
mis-inclusion of non-free programs in the normal Debian packaging rules:
if non-free is truly not a part of Debian, why are Debian's rules being
applied?

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Raul Miller wrote:

>Please see: http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html
>
>For inclusion in non-free, which is more significant: access to source
>code or 100% FHS compliance?
>
>Thanks,
>
>

-- 
 Customer:  "I'm running Windows '98"      Tech: "Yes."      Customer:
   "My computer isn't working now."     Tech: "Yes, you said that."

Who is John Galt?  galt@inconnu.isu.edu, that's who!