On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 19:27:22 -0500 Hendrik Boom <hend...@topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 09, 2016 at 10:36:53PM +0100, Philippe Cerfon wrote: > > And btw: > > Even if Debian doesn't want to do the non-open thing now or perhaps > > generally doesn't want to allow people to opt-out of closed source > > software while keeping other non-free software, then the name > > non-free-firmware seems to break the current naming, doesn't it? > > main > > contrib > > non-free > > > > These all give the "license status" of their packages. > > But non-free-firmware, would give license status and package type. > > > > > > Oh and since this has been brought up by someone. > > It seems better if packages wouldn't be in multiple suites. > > That's also what I'd have intended with non-open, in other words, a > > package that is in non-open is only there and not also in e.g. > > non-open/firmware (and vice versa). > > Maybe closed-source would be clearer than non-open. > > -- hendrik > One thing that really bugs me about the Debian component system is failure to differentiate between software (the functional component to any computer system) and data (the non-functional component of a computer hardware/software system). Example: I personally oppose non-free software and will not install or run it. But I have no such qualms about non-free data- that is something for the free *culture* movement, not the free *software* movement- of which Debian is a project, and in which Debian should maintain its focus. The inclusion of both non-free software and data in non-free means that in order to use, say, AlienArena, which is free software but relies on non-free data, one must enable both non-free and contrib! It is a pretty silly situation- that in order to play a free game one must sacrifice their freedom and enable the non-free component. I would divide the Debian package repository as follows: 1. free-software This would be for free software. 2. free-data This would be for free data. 3. non-free-software This would be for non-free software. 4. non-free-data This would be for non-free data. One could go even further and divide the non-free-software component into components based on exactly *what* freedom is being withheld- so 'drm' (for freedom 0), 'no-source' (for freedom 1), 'non-redistributable' (for freedom 2) and 'non-modifiable' (for freedom 3) or something along those lines. Of course, being a free software fanatic myself, I would prefer that Debian just stopped encouraging the use of and distributing non-free software, but since that isn't happening anytime soon, I see this as the best solution.