On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 14:00:51 +0000, Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> As you say, there's a couple of practical issues. There's also the > fact that putting something in contrib is something of a judgement - > we're saying that this driver needs non-free code to work, and as a > result isn't worthy of going in main. Which is a touch misleading - > its dependence on non-free code is no stronger or weaker than for > many drivers in main. I must confess I do not see it that way. I think of Debian as distriuting softwware that runs on a platform, this platform consists of hardware, and, perhaps, associated software burned into ROM/flash. We do not distribute the hardware, and the user arranges for control to be transferred to Debian on power on. I, thus, draw a line between what runs above this line, and things that run below, that existed before Debian started running. Software that resides on disk, however, lives on our side of the divide; the kernel, and the filesystem drivers are required to mediate delivery of this non-free payload to the system, and it can't just be considered, in my opinion, just part of the hardware platform on which Debian runs (albeit a part of the platform that is software). I do not expect this distinction I draw to be the same for everyone else, but I do contend that there is a difference between these drivers, and a difference that is logically consistent, and compatible with we shall not make our system depend on non-free stuff. manoj -- Agnes' Law: Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of. Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]