Re: ITP seahorse

[John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu>]

I do.  Consistency is a virtue as well, in fact without it, IMHO no
other virtues could exist.  If main is to be considered hermetic in one
case, it should be so in all cases.  While I do not wield the power of
Gnu.org, >I< cannot recommend a distribution that is a hodgepodge of
inconsistencies and nontechnical but politically correct kludges.  I do
not subscribe to the situational ethics that allow the veil of Main to be
punctured only when convenient, and I doubt I ever will.  As the policy
manual (chapter 2 introduction (item 1) and section 2.1.2 (item2)) states
ATM, 1) ...the archive is split into "main", "non-us", "non-free", and
"contrib"...  and 2) ... Must not require a package outside of "main" for
compilation or execution (thus the package may not declare a "Depends" or
"Recommends" relationship on a non-main package)...  The wording is very
specific (if outdated): Main MUST NOT declare a dependency outside of
main, and non-free is a separate section in that context.  To be precise,
YOU used that section as a goad on Debian once, Mr. Stallman, "for 'tis
the sport to see the enginer hoist with his own petard, and't shall go
hard on him", to quote the Bard.  


On Sat, 20 May 2000, Richard Stallman wrote:

>     > I would put this front end either in non-US or in main, because
>     > it is not a bad thing for main packages to point to it.
> 
>     "Bad" is not the issue. The issue is that main is self contained, and can
>     be installed without anything else but main. 
> 
> I see no particular virtue in this.  Pointers from main to non-free
> software is a problem for specific reasons; pointers from main
> to free non-US programs are not a problem.
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Pardon me, but you have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a
damn.
email galt@inconnu.isu.edu