On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 10:16:38PM +0000, Stephen Gran wrote: > This one time, at band camp, Thomas Bushnell BSG said: > > I think this is clearly incorrect. The DFSG and the SC do not say > > anything about the requirements for main that I can see. > > This is a clear misunderstanding, AFAICT. Point 1 of the SC says that "We > will never make the system require the use of a non-free component", and > the DFSG define the difference between free and non-free. Since require > in the technical sense is expressed through dependencies (although I > have seen someone assert with explanation that package dependencies don't > matter here, for some reason), it is rather clear to me that ndiswrapper
Actual dependencies are not always expressed in debian/control, because sometimes a required item is not packaged. (This is one of the reasons why a package would go into contrib.) For example, flashplugin-nonfree requires the non-free flash plugin from Macromedia to provide its functionality. That plugin is not packaged (hence the need for the installer, flashplugin-nonfree) so clearly this dependency cannot be expressed in the control file. flashplugin-nonfree itself contains scripts which I presume meet the DFSG. Do you think we should put it in main? > ndiswrapper is a piece of free software. It does not need non-free tools > to build, and it will execute as a standalone app without any drivers. (And do what? Display a usage screen? Anything more?) > The fact that most people use it to enable non-free drivers to work is > largely irrelevant - most people use wine and various other emulators > for similar purposes. This is also true of flashplugin-nonfree. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
