This one time, at band camp, Nathanael Nerode said:
> Stephen Gran wrote:
> >Do you really think that there is a magical difference depending on
> >where you ship a file?
>
> It's not a "magical" difference. It's a documentation difference.
> And a very important one.
>
> There's a big difference between "We'll have random non-free stuff
> mixed loosely into the free stuff", and "Free stuff will be over here;
> non-free stuff will be over there."
Er, what are you blabbering about? Non-free software needs to be in
/usr/share/doc only? Or it needs to be in /nonfree on the mirrors?
If you are actually arguing that putting non-free software into some
isolated place on your filesystem makes any bit of difference, I can't
see the point of your argument.
> I've said this before, but most people don't seem to get it. I do
> *not* believe that "all software should be free". I believe that it
> should be trivial to *tell* whether a piece of software is free or
> not. Currently Debian makes this impossible.
apt-cache policy `dpkg -S /path/to/file | awk -F: '{print $1}'`
will tell you where the file came from, and whether it's free, if it's
part of a deb.
> >Or is this some sort of wedge tactic, intended to make a larger
> >change down the road more acceptable by making a smaller one now?
>
> No, it's not. It really isn't. The whole reason why I started this
> thread is because most people seem to be arguing about a completely
> different issue from the one I care about most. I'm trying to make it
> clear what I'm actually talking about (and perhaps someone else will
> agree with me), because most people talking to me are arguing at
> cross-purposes.
So, just to be clear, you are arguing that what you care about is
putting non-free software that Debian distributes into a special place
on the filesystem? The point of which is what exactly?
Look, I am not trying to be rude, although I can understand that you
may feel I am being so. We are in the middle of several rather heated
debates about whether or not this or that thing is free, and you come
along and propose that not only are we lying to users, but we should
mandate the FHS location for non-free bits, but still ship them.
What?
--
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| ,''`. Stephen Gran |
| : :' : sgran@debian.org |
| `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer |
| `- http://www.debian.org |
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