On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 10:34:52AM +1200, Andrew McMillan wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-30 at 12:05 -0400, CJ Fearnley wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 10:38:14AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > > CJ Fearnley <c...@cjfearnley.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > 2.2.1 The main archive area
> > >
> > > The main archive area comprises the Debian GNU/Linux distribution;
> > > only the packages in this area are considered part of the
> > > distribution. None of the packages in the main archive area require
> > > software outside of that area to function.
>
> I'd prefer even more succinct brevity, along the lines of:
>
> Anyone may use, share, modify and redistribute the packages in
> the 'main' archive area freely<footnote>See
> http://www.debian.org/intro/free for more about what we mean by
> free software.</footnote>.
>
> main -> 'main' to make it clearer that it is a proper noun
> as capitalising it would not work.
I like Andrew's version: "brevity is the soul of wit". In Policy, main,
contrib, and non-free are in italics and so I presume that italics are
more appropriate than quotes ('). But that's probably a technical matter
for the committer.
It is probably time to bring this issue to a conclusion. I can't think
of anything else to add and the combination of Russ' and Andrew's text
does a good job of fleshing out the nature of the three archive areas.
> > > and then going on to the language already there, which already requires
> > > that all the packages comply with the DFSG.
> > >
> > > > 2.2.2 The contrib archive area
> > >
> > > The contrib archive area contains supplemental packages intended to
> > > work with the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, but which require
> > > software outside of the distribution to either build or function.
> > > Apart from this requirement, all software in the contrib archive area
> > > complies with the DFSG and with the policy requirements in this
> > > manual.
> > >
> > > > 2.2.3 The non-free archive area
> > >
> > > The non-free archive area contains supplemental packages intended to
> > > work with the Debian GNU/Linux distribution that do not comply with
> > > the DFSG or have other problems that make their distribution
> > > problematic. They may not comply with all of the policy requirements
> > > in this manual due to restrictions on modifications or other
> > > limitations.
> > >
> > > I don't think any of the above changes anything normative, so once we
> > > reach consensus on the wording I can go ahead and apply this.
--
We are on a spaceship; a beautiful one. It took billions of years to develop.
We're not going to get another. Now, how do we make this spaceship work?
-- Buckminster Fuller
CJ Fearnley | Explorer in Universe
c...@cjfearnley.com | "Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller
http://www.CJFearnley.com | http://blog.remoteresponder.net/
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