[John Lines - Sat, 27 Dec 2003 01:25:44 PM CST]
> > If that's the worst problem that is only solved by non-free, I'd say
> > we're doing pretty well.
>
> I suspect the potential complete removal of GDFL documentation from the
> distribution is probably a worse problem.
And there are probably worse problems.
These are only a few of the problems I could pick out --- and I skipped
over games, software that had free equivalents that I knew of, as well
as software that I didn't know what did --- and I only had time to get
through the (tiny) non-free crypto and only a through e of the rest of
non-free.
People should contribute more. I would, but I have no time to.
I note that all these problems can be solved by installer packages. I
also note that what's likely if the resolution goes through is a
plethora of free installer packages, probably with a lead installer
package library.
In my opinion, it is somewhat asinine to not package what we *can*
package and, instead, rely on installer scripts which bring about the
same end.
If we wanted to be truly free, we'd also have to get rid of all of TeX,
since those packages live under a sort of strange compromise that Debian
does not encourage. And we know how many users we'd lose if we did
that, so of course we're going to skirt that issue for now.
We're only ever free in spirit, whichever way this resolution passes.
Here comes the list. Please contribute. Also, feel free to add in
'Migration scheme' fields to packages that can be migrated to
alternatives that haven't been thought of yet.
Problem: Loss of support for PGP keys
Related Packages: pgp5i, rsaref2
Details (why is this important?):
Many people out there still use PGP---and may be using this to sign
messages and so on. This includes companies and universities.
rsaref2 is a way for GPG to deal with these keys---dumping pgp5i may
have minimal impact, but dumping rsaref2 will have more of an
impact.
Problem: Loss of documentation
Related Packages: abs-guide, doc-html-w3, doc-linux-nonfree-html,
doc-linux-nonfree-text, doc-rfc, doc-rfc-*,
ebook-dev-kde20
Details (why is this important?):
abs-guide: The Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
doc-html-w3: The w3 recommendations.
doc-linux-nonfree-*: See 'apt-cache show' for details.
doc-rfc*: The RFC's. There were a bit too many to list.
Problem: Loss of Arabic support in TeX
Related Packages: arabtex
Details (why is this important?):
See 'Loss of Asian language support in PDF and Ghostscript'.
Problem: Loss of Asian language support in PDF and Ghostscript
Related Packages: cmap-adobe-cns1, cmap-adobe-gb1, cmap-adobe-japan1,
cmap-adobe-japan2, cmap-adobe-korea1
Details (why is this important?):
I dunno, some of our developers and many users are in countries that
happen to use these languages a lot?
Problem: Loss of support for distributed.net
Related Packages: distributed-net, distributed-net-pproxy
Details (why is this important?):
It's remotely conceivable that some of our users are interested in
donating CPU cycles to some of these projects.
--
| Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought
| is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
| -- A.E. Houseman
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