Re: GR to remove non-free...
John Foster <jfoster@augustmail.com> wrote:
>I have for some time been concerned about the overall size of the basic
>Debian distro. I voiced that opinion and here will repost it. The
>Debian distro would be best served by limiting the BASIC distro to
>those main items covered by the GPL, LGPL etc. and in keeping with
>that, those should be kept to one disk image.
To be honest, I think a better solution to that would be to improve
tools like dselect and apt to make it easier to find your way around the
distribution.
You should (at least in theory) be able to take the first of a set of
Debian CDs and have a self-consistent, working system just from that ...
>I think that the items in contrib and non-free should be made available
>as downloads from any site willing to sponsor the space and should be
>allowed to be listed as Debianized or Debian correct applications as
^^^^^^^
>long as they follow the proper conventions of installation. In short to
>use the .deb extension they must follow the accepted installation
>convention.
I don't like the underlined word at all; it has the feel of restriction
far beyond what is currently there. For instance, I distribute some
Debian packages I've built from my website. Should I have to apply for
permission to do so? Or should the lawyers come round if I've made a
mistake in the packaging?
--
Colin Watson [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]
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