Re: Are online services also software for Debian's rules?
]] Christian Seiler
> > So that means I don't think all of Debian should be in non-free because there
> > are no free cpu designs
>
> Ahem, nobody said anything about non-free here, we're talking about
> contrib. That said: for all release archs of Debian there are
> actually free implementations of the CPU architecture, in the form
> of Qemu. So I don't think this applies here.
Taking this to its absurd extreme gets you, unsurprisingly, absurd
results:
Sure, qemu itself is free, but it'll have to run on an OS which is
either not Debian (in which case, according to some of the arguments in
this thread, it should go to contrib), or Debian. Eventually, you end
up on the silicon. However, modern silicon is largely defined by
software, and has supporting software on many chips (all of which is not
in Debian), so effectively requires software outside of Debian to
function (and so should go to contrib).
I don't think our distro would be improved by arguing that all packages
should move to contrib.
Having to structure your code or packaging in a specific way to ensure
you can actually put it in main rather than contrib also does not seem
like something we should encourage; it should be done according to what
makes technical sense.
> > [free CPU designs]
> > (although I'm sure there are...)
>
> There are, take a look at RISC-V, for example. [1] And for the
> requirement about not requiring non-free software, you don't need
> to have a fully free CPU design, just one where the microcode is
> free. And I believe that current POWER CPUs fall under that
> category. (I may be wrong though.)
Doesn't help if it's not packaged in Debian, though.
--
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are
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