***** JL => Jim Lynch JL> I'm afraid, that if it were made illegal to mention non-free JL> things in the expository-but-non-functional parts of debian JL> instalations, people might lose sight of important histories such JL> as in the above exsamp;e.
You have a good point. What I was trying to express is that I feel uncomfortable with free packages which mention non-free software when apparently (this is obviously something which others may disagree with) there is no real need to do it. But I'm really only suggesting that this behavior should be avoided at all if possible, I don't aim to have it policy. What I do think should be policy is that main (which includes non-US free software) should exist without any reference at all to contrib and non-free. I think it's good that maintainers who wish to help people with non-free needs do so and continue to do so, providing packages for them. However, if we are really after developing a free (universal) operating system, we should concentrate ourselves on free software and provide a consistent collection of free software and just free software. This means, IMHO, that free packages should not reference non-free packages in the Debian sense (i.e., suggests, recommends, and depends). Regards, -- Davide G. M. Salvetti - IW5DZC [JN53fr] - <http://www.linux.it/%7Esalve/> <http://www.gnu.org/> * <http://www.debian.org/> * <http://www.linux.org>
