On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 09:21:43PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Because i believe the time of confrontation has not yet come, and that > > the moment to remove non-free from the debian infrastructure (see how > > heavy this construction is over the simpler from debian, which you > > choose to misunderstood). There is no alternative to non-free hardware > > today, so there is not really much we can do about this. But all the > > rest of the non-free software, by all means, get ride of it. > > Does this mean that you would support the removal of all of non-free > with the exception of those packages necessary to support closed > hardware?
Well, there is also the problematic question of documentation. It pains me to see that i was forced to remove the ocaml-doc package from the debian distribution and into non-free, while at the same time loads of non-free documentation still stands in main. So, i would oppose the removal of non-free documentation until this whole mess is cleared, not before a few month as i have been lead to understand. Also, a non-free documentation for a free package should be taken special consideration for, as it enhance the use of free packages, and well, documentation is more akin to books and other written documents than software, and furthermore, it could as well be free software, as upto now, upstream has added every modification i asked them to include. Also, i believe that maybe in the case of documentation, you could consider that an unmodifiable document plus an errata document or whatever would be considered as a pristine orig tarball plus patch or something such, i don't really know, it is a difficult thing. Also, if we were going to take a move to remove those non-free packages, i would hope that it would be over a long enough time to let us have the time needed to either get upstream to change their mind over it, or find other solutions. As of other non-free stuff, well i need lha as i often receive lha compressed documents profesionally, but i believe a free alternative may be possible. I have even started looking a bit, but i don't really care enough for it. Then there is a spattering of non-free games and game data i used to test 3D graphics, but again i believe they are not really all that important, just convenient to have there. Friendly, Sven Luther
