On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 02:53:52PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: > On Sun, 09 Jan 2005, Brian Nelson wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 12:59:08PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > > No more nonsensical than the fact that code within a program that > > > makes optional use of a non-free library can go in main, while a > > > program consisting soley of that code must go in contrib. > > > > Of course it is. If you only rely on package boundaries, you could > > in theory move all of contrib into main by bundling it all into a > > single package that has at least one completely free component. > > Dependencies do not make a component any less Free than a component > lacking dependencies. The whole purpose of contrib (at least in my > mind) is to indicate to users that they will need something extra from > non-free or even something we can't distribute to make useful use of > the program in contrib.
I believe contrib exists because, as the SC states, "we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software." > Being in contrib doesn't mean that a work is evil, nor is contrib a > second cousin to non-free. It means it is "not a part of Debian," and won't be distributed on most Debian CD sets. It essentially means that hardware that needs drivers in contrib is not supported by Debian. There's a good chance Debian won't even be installable on such a system. > You could conceivably move all of contrib into main by making it into > a package that did something useful. Of course, a package made in the > way you describe would not be useful at all. Of course it would be useful--it has a driver that "depends" on no "non-free software". Stupid? Very. But still useful... -- For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!