[Trisquel-devel] Idea: Dummy or virtual packages for some non-free software instead of removing

[Morne Alberts]

On 05/06/2012 10:26, Ivaylo Valkov wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I have a proposition, but I do not know is it going to be easy to
> implement and maintain. As I already wrote in a comment for bug #5330
> [1], just removing packages that are not free software from the
> repositories is kind of problematic for two reasons. 
> 
> First it might break dependencies, which is the case with bug #5330.
> Although some of the programs might still be able to work
> (theoretically), if they are installed, but some missing not-essential
> dependencies are not. 

I would assume that before a package gets removed it should be verified
that no other packages depend on it. If it turns out that another
package depends on it absolutely, then the whole chain of packages
should be removed (or turned into virtual packages).

However, if a non-free package is a non-essential dependency of another
package then ideally this other package should be patched to remove the
non-essential functionality provided by the non-free package. But this
could be time-consuming and error prone. If the package is not patched
then a user might come across the functionality provided by the
(removed) non-free dependency and it will fail for no reason. This could
make Trisquel appear broken.

> Second, it is not clear for the users why a
> package is missing. In the case of bug #5330 it turned out, the reason
> was licensing issues, and without knowing that I just installed the
> missing package from Ubuntu.
>
> Isn't it possible instead of removing packages to make them virtual or
> dummy with a short explanation why they are missing and potentially a
> link to the bug report in Trisquel or upstream?

I think it is a good idea to let a user know that a specific package is
non-free but we must be careful with the execution.

Some things to look out for:
- What exactly to do to the package metadata (remove all information?
remove just the description? or just add the license issue? etc.)
- Some indication during or after installation to notify the user that
it is just a virtual package. For example, if a user sees a website that
says "apt-get install XYZ" and the user runs it blindly they will not
know that it is not an actual package, so there should be a message in
addition to any metadata changes.

Perhaps as an alternative to keeping virtual packages, we could instead
have a section on the website with a list of all the removed packages.
However, I am not sure if such a list (or the existence of virtualised
non-free packages) does anything to a distro's freedom status. Or maybe
we can just tell users to look at the "official" blacklist:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Software_blacklist

-- 
Morne Alberts

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