** On Jun 16, John Goerzen scribbled: > grendel@vip.net.pl (Marek Habersack) writes: > > > > > > We could manage non-free separately but quality control would suffer. > > > > > > > > People keep claiming this but nobody has yet shown why. > > > > > > Namespace conflicts for one. > > - version conflicts > > What do you mean? Prime example from today is the Helix GNOME debs packages and the Debian "blessed" set of the same packages. They both belong in main, both have the same names, the same versions to minimize confusion with the difference that Helix adds 'helix' after the Debian version number. Now, if somebody uses the Helix packages and it happens that one of them is outdated in relation to the package of the same name but from the Debian archive - the latter will overwrite the Helix package and it may happen that the GNOME desktop will stop function properly. If package pools are separated then you may bet your salary that such clashes will happen. > > - compliance with the *current* Debian Policy > > You blindly believe that every package in non-free fully complies with > current policy now? No way. I don't believe bilindly in *anything*. I just *assume* (and it's a common sense and belief in the Debian developers' excellency) that those packages (or at least most of them) are compliant with the Debian Policy. Besides what you wrote isn't a counter argument to what I wrote. > > - *official* BTS > > Somebody on www.nonfreedebs.org or whatever can set up their own > official BTS. Debian has no monopoly on "officialness". The 'whatever BTS' is non-existent and non-functional now. If it is created and it works ok, then I'll withdraw the above issue. > > - dependencies on packages in the Debian distribution > > What's the problem here? Package A v0.0.1-1 (outside of Debian - on the whatever.org repository) depends on library B v1.5.29-2 from the Debian distribution (the main section). The B's maintainer packages a new version without paying attention to the package A dependencies, since the package A doesn't exist for Debian (read: is ignored by Debian). If the repository A doesn't collect all its packages dependencies (why should it? They all exist in Debian after all and all the users will get them from Debian anyway) the dependencies are broken and John Doe cannot install A anymore because of broken depenencies. The dependencies cannot be satisfied because A is not in Debian and Debian doesn't care about the package. marek
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