[Gllug] So, that's the end of that, then

[Philip Hands]

On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 11:54:43 +0000, John Hearns <hearnsj at googlemail.com> wrote:
...
> There's also the small matter of Debian's fanatical devotion to the
> GPL - you're rather more likely to
> get non-free software packaged up for SuSE than Debian.

That's something of a mis-perception -- we do have a non-free archive,
for stuff that's distributable, but not sufficiently free.

The "problem" is that people in Debian tend not to care enough about the
non-free packages to actually bother packaging them -- I used to package
ssh for instance, as a non-free package, but once openssh turned up I
couldn't see the point any more, so it got dropped.

Having said that, we tend to be pretty hard-core when interpreting what
"distributable" means, so some stuff that other distro's either decide
they'll get away with distributing, or where they sign heads of
agreement in order to get specific permission to distribute, Debian's
FTP masters will reject.  That's why we have quite a few packages that
are really just downloaders that allow a user to grab things like Flash
From the original source -- sadly that is a fairly fragile kludge, since
it relies on the owner not rejigging their web site.

Anyway, I suggested making SuSE a Debian derivative -- Debian makes no
attempt to stop derivatives from packaging anything they like.

> As a for instance, there is the really nifty 'one click install' for
> SuSE - visit a webpage with the particular software
> you're after, and one click will get it added to your repository list.

Right, so for Debian proper, that might be a bit "naughty" depending on
how it's implemented, as it's against Debian policy for one package to
touch another package's configuration file, but again, even if this was
implemented in a way that would not pass muster for Debian, that's no
reason for it to be excluded from SuSEian ;-)

I'm sure it would be possible to implement something in a Debian
approved manner though, and doing so might well result in that
becoming a standard approach for all the Debian-ish distros, which
would probably be a nice feature to have.

> There will be similar for Debian of course.
> But what I'm thinking on is Nvidia graphics drivers - dead easy to get
> them installed an running on Opensuse desktops
> with clear instructions on what you do:
> http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

Yeah, so Debian doesn't make installing non-free drivers easy, but
Ubuntu does -- SuSEian could do the same.

> And please (nto having a go at you specifically Phil) let's not have
> the traditional howls of "why aren;t you using the completely
> free drivers which bearded geeks have knitted from yoghurt and some
> spare copper wire, and support via IRC channels"
> My answer - I have engineers to support, and a job to hold down.

No howling from me.

It takes all sorts, after all -- I'd rather be reminded (by a mildly
painful install) that if I don't make efforts to replace the
non-free-only hardware, it'll probably bite me when the vendor
end-of-lifes it, and lets their drivers rot.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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