Quoting Bijan Soleymani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Joel Konkle-Parker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Why can't Sun's j2re and mplayer be provided in non-free or contrib? > > I've read various things about how their legal status is > > incompatible with Debian's DFSG, but I thought that's what non-free > > was for in the first place. > > Things in non-free must be freely distributable in binary form. I > don't think Sun's java allows that. I think it even puts restrictions > on that.
Ok, I can understand that. But why must non-free distribute in binary form? I've dabbled in Gentoo for a little while, and they have a system that prompts for download of the j2re from Sun, then performs its own tasks on it. That would be equivalent to the following: -- # apt-get install sun-j2re downloading... yada yada This package requires Sun's j2re package to be downloaded seperately. Please visit http://java.sun.com/whatever and place j2re.version.run into your current working directory. Then re-run apt-get. # *visit, agree to eula, download* # apt-get install sun-j2re *finds j2re.version.run, installs, makes menu items, configs, etc.* # -- This way, the only things being distributed are the configuration scripts. > As for mplayer the thing with that is that mplayer in its natural > state might contain certain patent or copyright violations, making it > illegal to distribute it. Debian could remove those parts but then it > would make mplayer useless. The developpers of mplayer have said that > they don't want people to distribute cut down versions of mplayer > because people will laugh at the results ("what do you mean this > player can't play .avi, real, or quicktime?"). This one makes a little more sense. Although what's different about this and libdvdcss? We have a somewhat convulated process for installing libdvdcss with ogle, but it works. -- Joel Konkle-Parker Webmaster [Ballsome.com] Phone [662-518-1636] E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
