non-free vs. free packages

[Eric Sandall]

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On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Zbigniew Luszpinski wrote:
<snip>
> IMHO:
> Do we really need non-free packages in moonbase?
> Modules are mainly designed to provide information how to build source
> packages. Non-free packages are usually binary and have their own binary
> setup/installer/configurator - installation is done usually by running
> installer which performs all needed operations automaticaly. So do not find
> the need for existence of such modules in moonbase. There are so many cool
> opensource modules that are outside moonbase which are much more worth
> including than easy to install binaries.

The problem with that is some 'free' packages will need some
'non-free' packages (e.g. eclipse, a 'free' package, needs some JAVA,
a 'non-free' package). If you don't allow for even binary packages as
a module then you cannot enforce this dependency.

One way around it, as I mentioned, is to remove all non-free/binary
modules from moonbase and add another 'base' that is not installed by
default which has these. That way, be default, Lunar does not have any
non-free packages (a la Debian), but people who want them can add the
non-free repository. You'll also want to add repository dependencies
in that case (so eclipse could depend on non-free/JAVA, otherwise a
dependency on just 'JAVA' probably won't find it) that will install
the non-free repository, if needed.

- -sandalle

- --
Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric at sandall.us                  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285  |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/
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