Re: gpl licensing

[Aragorn]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 19:56, John Hasler stood up and addressed the
masses in /gnu.misc.discuss/ as follows...:

> Aragorn writes:
>> But [Debian] does allow you to unwillingly or unknowingly install
>> non-free software...
> 
> Explain exactly how this might happen.

Well, suppose you want something installed on Debian, and you use /apt-get/
to get it.  How are you to know in advance whether what you're about to
install is Free or not?  

It is the same on most other distributions, by the way.  /yum/ on RedHat,
Fedora Core and CentOS or /urpmi/ on Mandriva.  You simply install a
package by referring to it in a generic way, e.g. ...

        urpmi kernel-sources

This will present you with a list of packages with the word "kernel-sources"
in their name, from which you then pick one (or multiple) and have it
installed.

If the distro's repositories contain non-Free packages, then those /might/
get installed as well, without that you know in advance whether what you're
installing is Free Software or not.

-- 
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)