

Re: contrib or main?

glenn@zewt.org wrote:

>We've had this argument before.  Someone claimed that drivers that require
>non-free firmware blobs should be allowed in main, saying things like "it
>might be used to recreate the blob!" and "the driver still works without
>it, it just exits with an error code!"
>It can be applied to just about anything in contrib: "an application that is
>nonfunctional without a non-free library doesn't require it, it's just not
>very useful without it"; "a Java application doesn't require a JRE, it's
Wrong, they are very different cases. Firmwares are not component of
drivers while libraries are tightly coupled with the programs linked to
them (run in the same address space, must be available when the program
is compiled and so on). When some object files are linked with a library
you get something different, while a driver has not changed a single bit
after another system component uploaded a firmware to the device it

>just not very useful without one".  It's an argument for abolishing contrib
>and merging it with main, saying "nothing really requires anything else".
Only in your reductio ad absurdum.


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