free-apt-get, silly idea?

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Not a Silly-idea IMHO.

Warmest regArds.

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From: Patrick <name at domain>
To: User help and discussion <name at domain>
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 7:55 PM
Subject: [Trisquel-users] free-apt-get, silly idea?

Sorry for a possibly ignorant and inflammatory post, I mean well....

I don't really know what goes into porting and recreating a truly free distro. I am sure the art work must be changed and the libre-linux kernel complied but I am assuming the only other difficult thing would be managing what packages get included, is this true?

If this is more or less true would a "gate keeper" package manager be useful?

If I wrote a synaptic like package manger and also somehow reworked apt-get as well to only download truly free software then could the distro just use another distros repository server? The blacklisted packages could be hard coded into the package manager.

Silly idea?

I hope I have not upset anyone, I am not trying to trivialize the hard work of setting up a free distro like Trisquel.

Good question... i am also waiting for an answer!

A nice idea!

But a few thoughts of the top of my head:

* A package manager accesses repositories of software that have been designated free/libre. What if one of these packages changed status, how would the hard coded manager deal with that?

* What if someone wants to install free/libre software that hasn't been hard-coded into the package manager?

Cheers!

Good question... i am also waiting for an answer!

A nice idea!

But a few thoughts of the top of my head:

* A package manager accesses repositories of software that have been
designated free/libre. What if one of these packages changed status, how
would the hard coded manager deal with that?

* What if someone wants to install free/libre software that hasn't been
hard-coded into the package manager?

Cheers!

GNU/Linux distributions such as Trisquel usually have their own package repository, and the package manager is configured to use that.

So yes, there's usually a "gatekeeper" in a sense because there are usually going to be people involved in the decisions of what does (or doesn't) make it into that particular distro's repository. If the distro is based on another (such as Trisquel is) they've got several choices: They can admit packages from their "upstream" repository without modification, or they can first modify the package in some way and then add their modified version into their repository, or they could blacklist the package entirely and not have it at all. They can also add their own packages, not found in the upstream distribution.

This is why the distro having their own repositories is essential: It means complete independence.

That independence also addresses the issue of what happens when a previously good package "goes bad": Depending on the specifics they can tae action like I mentioned above: Modify it to make it good again, or blacklist it entirely. Since the package manager is using the distro's own repository, the distro is in control.

Other package managers could be used of course. There's nothing a distro can use to stop people from adding other repos, etc. into their system because in the case of distros like Trisquel, everything is Free as in freedom so the user is in control.