Re: A Compromise Proposal on GR: Remove non-free

[Stephen Frost <sfrost@mail.snowman.net>]

On 10 Jun 2000, John Goerzen wrote:

> Bolan Meek <Bolan.Meek@wcom.com> writes:
> 
> > I suggest that the non-free packages be replaced by installer
> > assistants,
> 
> I would support such a solution as a compromise, and in fact, have
> already indicated such.  As long as Debian does not distribute the
> non-free code itself.

	So then users would have no idea that what they are installing
is non-free unless we somehow require the installers say something
about it.  We then also have debian packages that depend on things
outside of Debian's resources.
	If one of these 'installer' packages ends up w/ an RC bug,
what do we do?  If they have to be different then perhaps we would
want to put them into their own section, say.. 'non-free-installers',
and force everyone to update their sources.list files.
	It sounds like all you object to is the non-free files being
on Debian servers.  Perhaps a better way to handle this would be to
work one-by-one on replacing the packages with installer packages
that go out elsewhere to grab the actual files to install.
	I suspect this would become rather painful to do.  I also do
not see that it would be worth it.  All we've done (hopefully) is
put the actual files used to install non-free packages outside of 
Debian's control.  Writing such installers is time spent that could
be spent on better things to benefit the free software community.
	I think the downsides to this out-weight the political
advantage of being able to claim Debian doesn't have any technical
non-free stuff on its servers.

		Stephen