[NTLUG:Discuss] Debian and proposed change to social contract: clarification?

[Dan Griswold]

Richard et al.,

I would add these points to what has already been said:

1) Right now, the proposal to remove non-free is really a formal
   proposal that must be voted on by the Debian community, and that
   vote has not yet taken place. Indeed, there is some debate over
   whether the proposal needs to be resubmitted, as technically it has
   expired.

2) As Jonathan suggested, lots of stuff in non-free could remain
   available from other sources, if it were in fact no longer to be
   available on the debian mirrors. Package maintainers wouldn't
   necessarily stop building debs.

3) I don't have a whole lot from non-free on my system. vrms reports
   the following:

<quote>
         Non-free packages installed on dgrismac.home.org

freefont                  Freeware font selection for X11
mpg123                    MPEG layer 1/2/3 audio player
navigator-base-475        Navigator base support for version 4.75
navigator-nethelp-475     Navigator online help for version 4.75
navigator-smotif-475      Netscape Navigator 4.75 (static Motif)
netscape-base-475         4.75 base support for netscape
netscape-java-475         Netscape Java support for version 4.75
tnt                       An AIM client for EMACS.
unzip                     De-archiver for .zip files
xanim                     Plays multimedia files (animations, pictures, and soun
xephem                    An interactive astronomical ephemeris for X.

</quote>

Of the above, I really only use netscape (and friends), mpg123, and
xephem.

Cheers,

Dan

-- 
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Dan Griswold
dgriswol at mail.smu.edu
2004 Greenview Drive
Carrollton, TX  75010
(972) 394-2800
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