Re: non-free but distributable packages and kernel firmware

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>

> This has the strong smell of ranking some DFSG criteria above others
> in importance.  If you want this kind of distinction, I think a less
> discriminatory way would be to flag (internally or on a central web
> site somewhere) each package in non-free according to which parts of
> DFSG it fails.

I think it would be more manageable to flag freedoms that the package
still does provide, for example

   modified-noncommercial-redistribution
   unmodified-noncommercial-redistribution
   unmodified-commercial-redistribution
   all-freedoms-in-the-gfdl
   dfsg-freedom-of-all-runnable-programs
   dfsg-freedom-of-all-main-cpu-runnable-programs

or preferrably some shorter names :-)

That is, list reasons why somebody might want to *accept* the package
on his machine (or his redistribution) rather than list reasons why
somebody might wanto to *exclude* it. That way an overlooked tag would
lead to failure on the side of caution, and new tags could be added to
the system without retroactively reclassifying all packages in
non-free.
  
-- 
Henning Makholm                   "We will discuss your youth another time."