Hello Thanks for the prompt reply!
May I suggest that you might make a non-free_1 and non-free_2 directory. The non-free_1 directory would contain software for which there is no possible legal liability for the cdrom vendor and cdrom vendors would be encouraged to include. The directory non-free_2 would contain packages with more restrictive licenses.B Some of stuff in non-free is, in my opinion, rather basic and cdrom vendors should be encouraged to include it. Especially since other vendors include it with their distribution. King Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Bob Hilliard wrote: > King Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I have just installed debian from cdrom (infomagic), > > and some of my favorite packages, available > > on Red Hat, are missing from the Debian > > distribution. These packages (netpbm , xv) are in the non-free > > subdirectory of packages in www.debian.org, but in the distributions > > available on cdroms ( I checked other cdroms). > > > > I understand there may be restrictions on distributions of some > > packages, but if others can include it why cannot Debian? Debian > > seems to have the larger of packages than other distributions > > but they are missing some rather basic packages? > > This illustrates a point I was planing to bring up for discussion > on debian-devel. The Debian Social Contract, referring to the contrib > and non-free, says "We encourage CD manufacturers to read the licenses > of software packages in these directories and determine if they can > distribute that software on their CDs. > > Prior to the "Official CD", some vendors, such as CheapBytes, > included substantial parts of non-free on their CDs while others, > including Infomagic, ignored non-free. Since we made the "Official > CD" available with the bo release, all CD vendors seem to have taken > the path of least resistance, and reproduced the "Official CD" as is. > > The "Official CD" is a Good Thing (TM), but this side effect is a > Bad Thing (TM). I would like to see someone come up with a way to > persuade vendors to include as much of non-free as possible, while > still issuing the "Official CD". One possibility is to include the > non-free directory in the "Official CD" image, and point the vendors > to a statement similar to that in the Social Contract. > > Bob > -- > _ > |_) _ |_ Robert D. Hilliard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > |_) (_) |_) Palm City, FL USA PGP Key ID: A8E40EB9 > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
