Re: Moving contrib and non-free of master.debian.org
Much as I hate to say it, since I agree with the Debian philosophy on almost
everything, but it seems that by makeing it more difficult to get popular
packages, it will inspire people to just start yet another distribution, based
on Debian, but which includes things like KDE, and other packages which, for
very good reasons arn't included in Debian presently. This would fragment the
Debian community. If things ARE put on other servers, then we MUST be sure to
have clear pointers on where to find these packages, including the proper line
to add to the apt sources.list so people can download them automatically.
Dave Bristel
On Wed, 23 Jun 1999, Shane King wrote:
> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 14:53:34 +1000
> From: Shane King <thandor@donut.dhis.org>
> To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Moving contrib and non-free of master.debian.org
> Resent-Date: 23 Jun 1999 04:57:18 -0000
> Resent-From: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> Resent-cc: recipient list not shown: ;
>
> On Tue, Jun 22, 1999 at 03:18:08PM -0700, Chris Waters did spake thusly:
> > Shane King <thandor@donut.dhis.org> writes:
> >
> > > The pragmatic approach is just as hypocritical, if not more so. You've
> > > basically said it's ok for debian to be pragmatic while telling the users
> > > they should not be pragmatic and instead rely on only software which
> > > conforms to the DFSG. That is hypocricy, pure and simple.
> >
> > Oh COME ON people! We already have the contrib and non-free in a
> > separate tree. Moving it to a separate host will not make it ONE BIT
> > harder to find or install. Claiming that this change will force users
> > to rely on "only" DFSG-compliant software is sheer hyberbole! Buy a
> > clue!
>
> If mirrors choose not to mirror the new host, it WILL make it harder to
> find and install.
>
> It's not forcing users to do anything, it is sending a very bad message
> though, at least in my opinion. Debian already doesn't allow these packages
> into the "official" distribution. Now it's proposed that they must live on
> some other host. The message being sent out is that these packages aren't
> as desirable as the free ones. Which is all well and good, except for the
> fact debian itself is making use of some of them!
>
> If debian can't make do without them, then it IS hypocracy for debian to
> suggest to its users that they should do without them too.
>
> It's like the 40 cigarette a day smoker telling other people to quit - sure
> he may be right, but the fact that he's not practicing what he preaches
> tends to lesson the impact of his message.
>
> - Shane King.
>
>
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