On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:16:48PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> but things like
> inability to repair is more important: users get used to some
> software, then it gets deleted thanks to an unfixable serious bug. Ow.
Well, the only bugs in this category (would cause it's removal and can't
be fixed) are security problems and bugs that make the package useless
to everyone. I expect we'd be willing to waive any policy requirements
that can't be legally fixed. I don't think that would be a problem for
users, although certainly they should be aware of the risk before they
install stuff from non-free.
We've done worse things in main, though. We removed micq because upstream
tricked us; even though there was nothing stopping us from fixing the
problem.
I don't think removing packages people rely on for cause is a show-stopper
in any way.
> That didn't answer my second question. I think some packagers are
> reluctant to help reduce the need for their non-free packages, so I
> suspect that they will never accept their packages are not needed and
> we will never satisfy the "when" part of your answer.
I doubt anyone with a package in contrib wants to keep it there, no
matter what their position on non-free is. Having no packages that're
worth maintaining in contrib would be a strong argument that non-free
software isn't necessary anymore, IMO.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we can.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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