Remco Blaakmeer wrote: > > > 'non-US' seems to be a misnomer nowadays (as it has been for some time > already). Should it perhaps be replaced by 'crypto' and 'patented', so > that both can be separately mirrored in different countries? > > Remco > -- Many crypto algorithms are patented, so there is considerable overlap, thus a split would require 3 new sections.
However it may be relevant in the long term to develop a mechanism whereby 1. It can be determined without installation which restrictions apply to non-free and non-us packages, e.g. when creating cd-roms or while running deity interactively. 2. Mechanical filtering on specific common issues including the meta-issue "other problems" becomes possible, e.g. when creating cd-roms or mirrors, or when setting up a fool-proofing filter on apt to protect oneself from accidentally installing the wrong thing. 3. The master sites contains precomputed subsets of non-us and non-free which match the needs of each group of official mirrors, thus those mirrors simply mirror different directories of the masters into their root. Hardlinks on the master servers is probably the way to go. Some examples of issues for 2 include no-source (example: Netscape, opera) no-commercial-use (example: zyxel) payment-required (example: opera<5.0) contains-crypto (example: RSA, gnupg) uses-us-patent (example: IDEA, GIF) uses-non-us-patent (example: IDEA) contaminates-result-license (example: old bison) no-sell-copies (problem for cd-rom or pre-installed system) requires-other-sw (example: wrapper script which is not itself DFSG) requires-specific-hw (example: driver licensed only for specific hw) other-problems (any problems not listed, alone or in addition) if multiple apply, list all to allow negative filtering But such a mechanism is more an issue for the dpkg/apt teams, so this is a bit off-topic. -- This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings, do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue. Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
