Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Mr. S. Zacchiroli, Debian and gNS3...

[ben]

hello,

Jason Self wrote:
> I only wanted something out there for those that see this & think that Debian 
> is now free as of Squeeze (there are already many who think that the only 
> problem with Debian is the kernel.)

This is right, of course.

> IIRC, non-free is activated by default unless you run the installer in Expert 
> mode, in which case it asks if it should be enabled or not.

No. The only section activated by default is "main", on both Lenny and
Squeeze. And the installer doesn't ask whether one wants to activate
other repos or sections during installation.
It asks, however, if you want to include some network driver from an
external source, one which for license issues could not be included in
Debian main.

> Either way, there's a big difference, IMHO, between the user deciding to 
> install non-free software on their own accord versus, for example, the 
> computer 
> software (or the distro's own documentation) asking if they want to use it.

Very right.
My point is: asking for removal of any kind of non-free repo is not what
one should aim for - non-free software will always exist and be offered
(or at least its existence cannot be excluded). What one should aim for
is to decrease interest in it by offering non-free alternatives.
As you say, this involves stopping advertising the non-free software
(repos).

greetings
ben