I don't need to be CC:'d, thanks. Mathieu Roy wrote: > > Basically, if Microsoft Office someday works for GNU/Linux, we may > have a free software in contrib that will install it, without the > possibility to remove it with the standard debian tools.
my experience with the installer .deb's is limited mostly to the installers made for pine and djbware. they download the source, patch the source, then build the source. the result is a .deb. that .deb can then be installed. since it is a .deb installed by dpkg, it is under dpkg control and can be removed at any time. the additional benefit is that you can take that .deb and install it elsewhere, too. this works for things like pine and djbware, since the source code is available. for things like flash or MS Office, source would not be available. the installer making a .deb out of a binary distribution may be harder, but i feel that it is certainly possible. > I think that, at least, these installer, to be included in debian, > should be forced to build a real debian package for this non-free > software, when installing it. the ones that i am familir with do exactly that. i cannot speak for all of them, though. > Some packages clearly identified that vrms can clearly identify, some > package we can easily track and remove completely at will. IIRC, the qmail.deb is placed into section Local, which is why VRMS does not notice it. > So I think it would be appropriate to fill a bug for any of these > installers, asking them to build a correct debian package for the > software they install. > > What do you think? i would not mind if the installer's built .deb were listed as section non-free, so vrms could pick it up. -john
