On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 02:29:39AM +0200, Niklas Vainio wrote: > I've put up a web page listing possible replacements for packages currently in > non-free. There are still lot of blanks - please give suggestions. Perhaps > this > page can help in the discussion about removing non-free. > > Also included is explanation why the package is in non-free. This is based > on the summary Craig Sanders posted in debian-vote some time ago. I have > added comments from mailing lists and some of my own. In the discussion it > was noted that status of some packages is unclear and we might not have > permission to distribute them at all. > > Now I'm asking for suggestions for replacements and comments on whether some > packages should be either moved to main or removed completely because of the > license or what kind of changes to the license we could suggest to upstream. >
Notes on the upx-nrv package: As far as I know, this is the free sources also used in upx-ucl, but linked against an additional, non-free compression library. The benefits of compressing with upx-nrv rather than the free upx-ucl is supposedly a slightly better compression ratio. However it is unclear if the free version can always decompress files compressed by the non-free version. If it can then there should be no problem, but if it cannot, then the ability to decompress the non-free format is important for things like virus checking of e-mails (a large percentage of all e-mail viruses are upx packed, and I don't think the virus-writers care too much about licenses...). So depending on this compatibility issue, this may be very easy or very hard to drop! Keep up the good work Jakob -- This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings, do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue. Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
