Re: Comments on Debian packages and installation

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Thu, Jan 14, 1999 at 10:56:49PM +0100, Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR wrote:

> >   2. have policy strongly discourage links from main to non-free, but
> >      leave the final decision up to the package maintainer.
> 
> IMHO this is the right solution since it is *so* easy to realise.  I'd just
> change the second point to
> 
>     2. have policy strongly discourage links from main to non-free unless
>        this has been discussed and agreed upon on debian-devel.

how about:

  2. have policy strongly discourage links from main to non-free, but
     leave the decision up to the package maintainer who must first
     obtain concensus on debian-devel. as a last resort, any *extreme*
     cases of conflict can be resolved by the decision-making processes
     outlined in the Debian Constitution. common-sense to be applied first.


> That way we can filter out unreasonable cases.  

i think that's the key issue. sometimes it is reasonable or sensible for
a package to Suggest non-free.  The GIF issue, for example (although
there's a good argument for GIF-writing packages to be non-US rather
than non-free)

> And then change the word:  "Suggests:" should be "Supports:", as was
> proposed earlier (the utilities could still accept "Suggests:" but let
> it be deprecated).

i think the word Suggests: is more useful and more accurate than Supports:

craig

--
craig sanders