Software in main that is throughly useless without non-free software

[James Troup <james@nocrew.org>]

Hi,

I've just rejected tik from Incoming[1] because it was targeted for
main and as far as I can see depends on a non-free server to be
useful.  I've argued this before, for example when Adam wanted to
upload his netscape-base (IIRC) to main.  The package (like tik) was
undoubtedly DFSG free (Adam wrote it), but without netscape it served
no useful purpose.  I think free software which depends on non-free
software to be useful belongs in contrib.  I think this is the spirit
of the policy manual, but it's certainly not explicitly stated there.

Note: the problem here is the *exclusively* non-free nature of
required software; if there was a free server to connect to (e.g. with
samba, you don't _need_ to connect to a M$ server), I wouldn't have a
problem with it being in main.

So, opinions?

[1] I chose to reject it, because I'm, personally, not willing to put
it in main.  Guy and Richard are welcome and well within their rights
to do otherwise, if they disagree, i.e. the rejection is just an
indication of my decision, and I speak for no one but myself (as
ever).

-- 
James