[Gllug] Linuxemporium - Pink Tie

[David Damerell]

On Friday, 22 Nov 2002, rich at annexia.org wrote:
>On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 03:57:51PM +0000, David Damerell wrote:
>>What, apart from the fact that the current distribution contains
>>non-free packages and is as a result non-free overall?
>Right, so Debian also contains a considerable number of non-free
>packages.

Debian does not, no, contain any non-free packages. It is possible for
Debian developers to maintain non-free software in the Debian package
format, and these packages are kept in a separate area on Debian's FTP
servers.

This is not simply a technicality. No package in Debian proper can
depend on a non-free package. In constrast, the Red Hat non-free
packages are needed for the normal operation of the system.
Furthermore, the normal mechanism of generating Debian CD images will
result in images containing only free packages; in contrast, Red Hat's
images contain non-free packages, and they provide no assistance with
generating unencumbered images.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?

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