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Re: Moving contrib and non-free of master.debian.org



On Thursday 24 June 1999, at 11 h 8, the keyboard of Ionutz Borcoman 
<borco@borco-ei.eng.hokudai.ac.jp> wrote:

> of the packages (main, non-free and contrib), but add these:
> - as suggested, a file that briefly explain why package is in non-free

I agree. Just try to see why TAO is non-free in <http://cgi.debian.org/cgi-bin/
get-copyright?package=tao> to get the idea. But it is not necessary to have a 
new file README.non-free. A field in the copyright (of course added by 
dh_make) would suffice:

This package is non free because <explain why or delete this line is the 
package is free>

> - same stuff added to the description of the package

Yes. At the present time, we have no way to implement VRMS (Virtual rms is a 
program which scans your list of installed packages and displays all the 
non-free stuff) and it is a problem (if I take over the maintenance of a 
Debian box and I want to get rid of all the non-free stuff, I cannot, except 
by reading every licence).

Of course, the proposed README.non-free, while ugly, has the advantage that 
you don't modify dpkg...

This proposal goes into the right direction; instead of trying to find 
pathetic measures to keep people away from non-free, try to make sure that 
people who want only free stuff can actually do it (which is not yet 
possible). This is freedom, for me.

> If we want to promote the free stuff, then apt/dselect should have by
> default only the main in them. The docos should say how you can add
> non-free and contrib if this is what user want. 

Warning: this will crush debian-user under this new FAQ. (Remember the thread 
about Suggests:?)




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