Subject: Re: Bug#4078: lynx should be in `contrib'

From: Michael Meskes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:27:54 +0200 (MET DST)

Ian Jackson writes:
> No, because packages which depend on contrib packages must go in
> contrib too.

Hmm, that wasn't what was said a while ago when we moved xforms.

I'd like to ask the other developers what they think. While I see th elogic
behind your approach I still think LyX should be an official part of Debian.

What happens if I recompile it statically? Would it go into the standard
tree then?

Michael

-- 
Michael Meskes                   |    _____ ________ __  ____
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[email-masked]                  |   \__ \/ /_  / // /_/ /_/ / _ \/ ___/ ___/
[email-masked]                |  ___/ / __/ /__  __/\__, /  __/ /  (__  )
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From: Fernando <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 15:34:54 -0400 (EDT)

> behind your approach I still think LyX should be an official part of Debian.

Me too. However, I think that the way to accomplish that is to persuade
the XForms authors to release the sources under some kind of free license.
Or help promote a FreeXForms project.

> What happens if I recompile it statically? Would it go into the standard

I would still not be able to rebuild from scratch. Any user should be able
to rebuild any package in the official Debian distribution from the
original source plus our patches.

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From: "Frank Neumann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 21:45:49 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi,

> What happens if I recompile it statically? Would it go into the standard

Being a Debian/m68k user, my opinion is: _Each_ package that is in the
standard tree should be compilable for all platforms (ok, there are packages
where this does not exactly make sense, like base/mbr on an Amiga, but you
get the idea). This also means that for all those packages AND the packages
they depend on sources have to be available. 
LyX requires XForms. XForms is currently not available for m68k (I've started
talking to the author, but this might take a while). Even IF we once have
XForms for m68k, nobody still has the sources. 

So I'd say: Both XForms and LyX go into non-free. Compiling/linking LyX
statically doesn't change this point, IMHO.

Frank

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From: Mr Stuart Lamble <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:46:37 +1000 (EST)

> What happens if I recompile it statically? Would it go into the standard

If you're going to recompile it statically, I beg of you, provide a non-
statically linked version too (in a separate package, perhaps). One of my
major gripes about many programs is that they are larger than they need to
be, because they are statically linked, and I've got the libraries installed
on my system.

I've only got 350MB allocated to Linux...! :-)

-- 
Windows is not the answer. Windows is the question. Linux is the answer.
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/ for all your PC software requirements. ;-)

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From: Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 02:09:49 +0300

Michael Meskes:
> I'd like to ask the other developers what they think. 

I guess I'm repeating myself, but oh well. In my opinion, the main Debian
distribution (i.e., not including non-free or contrib) should consist only
of free software, where the definition of free includes the requirement
that source code is available and that the program does not depend in
a significant manner on a non-free package, whether the dependency is during
compilation, installation or use.

XForms is not free (no source). Anything that uses XForms is not free,
because you can't compile it without XFree.

All the installer packages likewise. And *-?motif packages.

If a package is otherwise free, but depends on non-free, it should go to
contrib.

> behind your approach I still think LyX should be an official part of Debian.

That would be great, but as long as it depends on non-free stuff, it should
go in contrib.

> What happens if I recompile it statically? Would it go into the standard

As far as I'm concerned, no. That just moves the dependency to another
point in time, and additionally causes trouble for users.

We need to have complete source code so that we can port packages to
new platforms, or to new tools or libraries. I'm sure XForms is nice,
but is there a version of the Alpha? For glibc? For newest XFree shared
libraries? For gcc with pentium patches? With profiling support? 

Placing a package in non-free or contrib isn't discriminatory, it's just
honesty and makes it possible for people to choosing packages more easily.
I'm all for having LyX packaged for Debian, and XForms too, but we aren't
helping the user by putting it into the main distribution.

-- 
Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]> <http://www.iki.fi/liw/>
Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 19:53 BST

[email-masked] writes ("Re: Bug#4078: lynx should be in `contrib'"):
...
> original source plus our patches.

Thank you, that is exactly what the policy is trying to achieve.

With your permission, I hope, I've added the fragment below near the
start of the section on copyright in the policy manual.

Ian.

The aims of the policy detailed below are:
<list compact>
<item>
That any user be able to rebuild any package in the official Debian
distribution from the original source plus our patches.
<item>
That we make available in our packaging formats as much software as we
can.
<item>
That it be easy for people to make CDROMs of our distribution without
violating copyrights.
</list>
<p>

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From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 19:56 BST

Frank Neumann writes ("Re: Bug#4078: lynx should be in `contrib'"):
...
> statically doesn't change this point, IMHO.

LyX and the XForms binary do not need to go into non-free because
AFAIAA[1] their distribution is not restricted.

Ian.

[1] As Far As I Am Aware.