On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Shaul Karl wrote: > On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 06:27:36PM +0200, shlomo solomon wrote: > > I was wondering if someone could explain the **philosophy** of the contrib > > directory on a Mandrake mirror. More specifically, after installing MDK 9.0, > > I noticed that AbiWord is no longer in the distro. After looking around, I > > found it, and lots of other packages in the contrib directory on one of the > > mirrors. > > > > Aside from saving disk space (but they could always add another iso to the > > download set), why are some packages in contrib and not in the distribution? > > > > > Due to licensing issues, perhaps with some other packages that the > package under question is interacting with? I would explore the Mandrake > site more carefully if I was interested in the exact reasons. > What will be easier for me is to quote why Debian has a contrib > directory. It could be that the reasons are somewhat similar.
No, this is Mandrake's contrib, which is the same as Redhat's contrib: "informal" packages. The distro (RH/MDK) does not guarantee anything regarding those packages. Mainly: no security updates. Many of those packages work well. Some of them are broken or half-broken. Some of them are simply dated. It is strange that a package (and one under active development, like abiword) was dropped from the distro, though. -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
