Hi James, Citing from 2.2.1: | The main archive area comprises the Debian distribution. | Only the packages in this area are considered part of the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | distribution. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | [...] | Every package in main must comply with the DFSG (Debian Free Software | Guidelines).
Section 2.2.2 and 2.2.4 describe contrib and non-free as "supplemental packages intended to work with the Debian distribution".
I see this distinction as an major point (not just formally), and I myself concentrate on the support of free software, which is Debian devoted for. That's why I propagate to use giza here and propose to discuss any issues with the authors of giza first before using an old non-free package (that is also completely unmaintained today). And I would also propagate that those who want to see pgplot within Debian to put some efforts (maybe coordinated) and discuss this with Caltech as the copyright holder. I am wondering why one doesn't see any of these efforts happen up to now, which makes my own motivation to drive for a compromise quite low.
However, apart from propagating this, it is not my decision where to use giza as a replacement for pgplot. Responsible here are the maintainers of libpgplot-perl. So, if you want to have this changed, please open a bug for that package (or re-assign this one) and convince them.
Best Ole
