R Garth Wood wrote: > The reason the distinction is not clear now is that ppl want > that feature(to be easy to install debs of any license). > If you try to change that they will just circumvent > whatever measure is in place and make it just as easy, > perhaps making the distinction less clear. > > I you want to make the distinction I think there is probably a better > way. Maybe nf-<pkg_name>*.deb or something.
I would disagree. There are three (and probably more) levels of distinction that we can use with regard to free software. These range from most general to most specific like so: [General] <--------------------------------------------> [Specific] ServerName <---------------> Directory <-----------------> FileName We currently use the directory to distinguish our non-free from our Free software. Wichert is proposing that we move this distinction to the more general choice (of server or domain name). This has the advantage that we can make sweeping statements like: "All software on www.debian.org is Free software" and "All software on www.debian.org is part of the Debian distribution" Right now, the best we can do is say: "All software located under the 'main' directory on www.debian.org is free software and part of the distribution" Your suggestion to use the filename as an indicator of freeness moves our distinction to a more specific case, and the statement then becomes: "All software not beginning with the letters 'nf' on www.debian.org is free software and part of the Debian distribution" I fail to see how a filename distinction would be less confusing, and I support the use of an alternate domain or server name to make this distinction provided that it can be accomplished without too much pain on our mirrors. Your comment that people will circumvent this distinction implies that Debian is somehow trying to prevent people from using the non-free section of the archive. This is not the case. "Circumvention" of these distinction through a concious choice of the user made possible by tools like apt is desirable and will be accomplished no matter how this issue is decided. -Mitch
