On Mon, 19 Jun 2023 22:54:09 -0400 Richard wrote: > 1. Is each and every one of the user-maintained recipes supposed to be for > a free program?
no - parabola does not host any user-maintained recipes, and does not direct users toward any - we generally warn against installing any third-party software yet, almost every parabola user know where to find them (arch hosts them); so they will have no trouble finding a recipe for any package that parabola has discarded - albeit, they will most likely find it in a pool alongside recipes for non-free programs (which are usually simply installers for the publisher's binary) On Mon, 19 Jun 2023 22:54:09 -0400 Richard wrote: > 2. How does Parabola deal with the issue of free programs that are > useful only for running nonfree programs? Does it try at all? If so, > in which steps? we believe that the FSDG prohibits such a program > The system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific > recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs. if the entire functionality is to install something else, that is effectively an executable recipe - the classic example is the flash-player installer - that program may itself be free - in theory, someone could modify it to install something other than the flash player; but there is little to no motivation for that use-case in general On Mon, 19 Jun 2023 22:54:09 -0400 Richard wrote: > 3. How do they verify that a package is really all free software, > when someone proposes to add it to the user-maintained recipes? i realize now the confusion - i was too vague - the user-maintained recipes i was referring to, are the ones that arch hosts - parabola does not blindly accept recipes as arch does - when i wrote that discarded packages are reverted to the user-maintained pool, i did not intend that explicitly - i was referring to the arch pool, where those recipes are hosted already, and will be, regardless of what parabola does parabola users do submit recipes for consideration, as a "packaging request" - we evaluate those thoroughly (eg: is it well-licensed, does it build entirely from source, does it recommend anything non-free or download anything from a third-party at runtime) - if accepted, parabola will host the recipe and binary packages - the user who submitted it is asked to continue maintaining the recipe, as an honorary team member; but they are not obliged to do so