On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 1:11 PM Stefan Monnier monnier@iro.umontreal.ca wrote:
There's also the fact that the wiki.debian.org includes several places where they encourage users to install `non-free` packages.
ohh. yeah. that won't help :) that would be viewed as "endorsement of the installation of non-free software", for sure.
I wish the two associations could take a more pragmatic look at the situation to resolve these disagreements.
well, one simple practical way would be to follow the trick deployed by devuan. what they did is extremely nifty: they created a proxy apt service that, for the most part, is just a "pass-through" to the standard debian mirrors.
one of the issues associated normally with maintaining a debian-augmented distro is: it takes considerably deep pockets to maintain a 160GB+ debian mirror.
a pass-through proxy that pre-vetted the repos, filtering out the entirety of the non-free section, would actively prevent and prohibit unintentional mistaken installations of non-free software by end-users blindly following online documentation, "authoritative" wiki pages and so on.
ultimately, their nightmare scenario is where *uninformed* end-users en-masse end up installing proprietary software *without* being aware of the consequences.
they genuinely don't care about the *intelligent* end-users that make informed decisions and smash through all and any barriers to bypass all and any limitations and restrictions placed in their path to get at the non-free firmware [or whatever].
l.