Debian: too free?

Posted Apr 29, 2004 5:32 UTC (Thu) by branden (guest, #7029)
In reply to: Debian: too free? by corbet
Parent article: Debian: too free?

Hmm...if you go to the Debian stable packages list, you find Netscape listed. Sure, it says "non-free," and your computer will transparently get it from a different directory on the server, but it sure looks like part of the distribution to anybody who doesn't know better. There's a nice "download" button right there on the packages.debian.org server....

For what it's worth, I agree. But the majority of people who voted to retain the non-free section of the Debian archives apparently feel that the distinction is clear enough.

It may be that, collectively, Debian is attempting to manage a Solomonic bargain between these competing interests. After all, if anything blacklisted from main due to licensing or missing-source-code problems can come gently to rest in non-free, and it's just as trivial to retrieve that stuff from there as it was from main, perhaps both the "puritans" (Debian will ship only Free Software!) and the "completists" (Debian will ship everything we possibly can!) will be satisfied.

Perhaps... ;-)