On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 01:27:00PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Bill Allombert <bill.allomb...@math.u-bordeaux1.fr> writes: > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 03:44:43PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote: > > >> Bill, so far you're the only one in #587279 objecting to the > >> clarification making the what-you-call "strange interpretation" crystal > >> clear (and following the way it was always handled). > > > Nobody in #587279 is saying that the text is ambiguous. This precisely > > why a policy change was proposed in the first place. > > I've always interpreted the current text to mean what the proposed change > says that it should mean, namely that non-default alternatives are okay > but the package cannot depend only on a non-free package. That's why I > originally was going to commit this as an informative change, since I > didn't think it was a normative change from the previous version of > Policy.
Part of the problem is what happens when the free alternative is not installable. I read this as a technical device to ensure that Debian conforms to SC1: "we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software". > I believed that because that's what Debian has done for as long as I've > been involved in it, so I always assumed that was the intended meaning. I do not know that. I never found more than a handful of packages that violated this and I always reported bugs to them. I do not believe that, given the small number of packages and developers involved, it is fair to say that "Debian has done" it. Cheers, -- Bill. <ballo...@debian.org> Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101122095138.gj16...@yellowpig
