Is there any way to get information about what makes a package non-free, whether there are free equivalents, and what other caveats are involved? For example, vrms tells me that I have the following non-free packages on my system:
communicator-base-461 communicator-smotif-461 dnsutils jdk1.1 navigator-base-461 navigator-smotif-461 netscape-base-461 netscape-java-461 quake-lib ssh unzip xmame xmame-x xquake Now, I understand most of these. The netscape ones are obviously because netscape isn't free software (bring on mozilla:) ), as isn't the jdk. Quake I thought was GPL'd these days, but I guess I was wrong, that doesn't surprise me much. xmame I can believe that the license is non-free, but I'd be interested to know exactly how. unzip... does that use patented algorithms? If not, what is non-free about it? That leaves ssh and dnsutils. Now, I thought that ssh (at least openSSH) was non-US/main - wasn't that kind of the point of using openSSH rather than what we had before? And dnsutils - why on earth should I need non-free software to query dns servers? What I'm really interested in, though, is whether there is a way for me to see that information automatically, rather than having to post to the list about it :) I'd like output something like the following: --- netscape-base-461 is distributed under a license that allows redistribution, but the source code is not included and modification is not allowed. To see the license read /usr/share/doc/netscape-base-461/(something) Alternatives: mozilla, mosaic, lynx, (...) mozilla is the future version of netscape but is currently pre-alpha. It is missing SSL and Java support since netscape is unable to distribute this code. mosaic is a very old browser lacking most modern features such as tables and frames. lynx is a text-mode only browser, although it will launch external programs for graphics files and other formats it cannot handle internally. --- In other words, a very brief summary of the problem (with a reference to the license), a list of alternatives, and the possible problems you might encounter with each alternative. Thanks, Stuart.
