Re: Clarifications
On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 02:42:53PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> Why do you assume that our users will be hurt by removing non-free
> from the FTP site? Remember that the distribution does not contain
> non-free now. As this is software not in our distribution, but yet we
> put it on our FTP sites, it is no more than miscellany that ought to
> be expunged.
If it is no more than miscellany, then why are you wasting all this
time? It is clearly more than miscellany to the dozens of people
posting on this matter, so don't trivilize it as such.
> > The proposal to remove non-free from Debian (and hence, AIUI, from
> > the normal archive) will have a deleterious effect on the users, and
>
> Why?
[Looks for a clue by four]
How many times does it have to be said? Lower quality packages, it's harder
to find the packages, fewer guarentees on package quality, inability to use
Debian's bug tracking system.
> > Debian's apt-get is complicit in making software a LOT easier to discover
> > and install. That is also makes non-free software a lot easier to install
> > seems to have caused quite a few ructions.
>
> The fact that apt makes it easy is one reason that the proposal can go
> forth. All people need to do is update their sources.list files and
> things will still work.
Update it to what? Again, you assume that this infastructure will suddenly
appear. Will you still be supporting your non-free packages on non-free.org
or whatever it is? What will you do to make it still work? If you won't help
then it won't work as well as it did. If many people do the same, then it
won't work nearly as well as it did.
> You say it "injures" users but you don't say how. You say it injures
> the Free Software community because of an "impoverished" Debian
> system, and yet the Debian system would not change. You also fail to
> recognize that users of the Debian system do not necessarily use
> non-free, as it is not a part of the Debian system. And you fail to
> recognize that getting non-free software elsewhere is trivially.
"Fail to recognize" != "disagree". The whole reason why distributions
exist is because it is not trivial to assemble a working collection of
programs and keep them up to date.
You seem to deny that this is a major change, which apparenly means you
haven't been reading anything the other people say. I find your position
reprehesible - instead of leading by example and removing your non-free
packages from distribution and trying to convince others to do the
same, you would try changing the rules to get your way. You then deny
that your change would have consequences and use double-talk -
"it is no more than miscellany", 'non-free packages could still use
the BTS' (paraphrase) - to convince people.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
http/ftp: x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu
"A dynamic character with an ability to survive certain death and
a questionable death scene leaving no corpse? Face it, we'll never
see her again." - Sluggy Freelance
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