[GNU-linux-libre] gnome-app-install

[Brett Smith]

I was doing some review work this morning, and as part of that, I
started taking a deeper look at gnome-app-install.  Currently, this is
on the blacklist because it recommends nonfree software.  I wanted to
learn a little more about how that could be fixed -- it seems like a
nice enough program otherwise, and it'd be nice to be able to keep it.

On gNewSense, at least, it looks like gnome-app-install just presents
packages based on what's (a) available from the repositories
in /etc/apt/sources.list, and (b) listed in one of the files
in /usr/share/app-install/desktop -- which is all included in the
app-install-data package.  I believe if you prepare a new
app-install-data package that does not include .desktop files for
nonfree programs, things will be fine.  Some initial testing (removing a
file from this directory, running update-app-install, and running
gnome-app-install) seems to confirm this.

I plan to update the blacklist to reflect the fact that the problem lies
with app-install-data and not gnome-app-install.  Putting together a new
version of app-install-data for the various distributions would probably
be some nice low-hanging fruit interested contributors could work on.

Any questions or comments about this, let me know.

-- 
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

Support the FSF by becoming an Associate Member: http://fsf.org/jf