:: Re: [Dng] A devuan "constitution"
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Author: Bob Proulx
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [Dng] A devuan "constitution"
hellekin wrote:
> For the record, I believe the main reason for which Debian is not listed
> on the GNU 100% free software distros to be because it ships with the
> non-free repository by default. If non-free were treated like backports
> or experimental, and the sysadmin would have to enable it by hand, I
> think it could enter the list.


Not quite. Debian does not configure non-free by default. If you
want non-free in Debian you must edit the files and configure it
yourself. Just like experimental and backports.

The FSF view is that Debian supports non-free because non-free is
hosted on the same servers as main. In the FSF view non-free appears
the same as experiment and backports do. See their official statement
here. This has also been discussed many times on different lists.

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

Some time ago Stefano Zacchiroli obtained non-free.org as a possible
home to host the non-free repository completely outside of Debian.
The idea was that if non-free was no longer hosted in the Debian
repositories next to main then perhaps the FSF would then endorse
Debian. A good idea. It may still happen one day.

Regardless of endorsements it might be a good idea for Devuan to make
a clean separation of what is Devuan versus what is not Devuan.
Instead of hosting something in an unsupported section on Devuan
servers it might be better if right from the start a separate
infrastructure was set up for 3rd party non-devuan packages. Easier
to do it from the start than to try to split these out later.

Meanwhile I rather like the idea of the "antisocial" proposal.

Bob