[ILUG] contrib and non-free ?

[Gary Coady]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 08:58:44AM +0100, Declan Grady wrote:
> I was also gonna ask about what is contained in the contrib and non-free
> folders ?
> Is this stuff still covered by GNU licence, or is it commercial stuff ?

All packages in main and contrib follow the Debian Free Software Guidelines
(DFSG), which includes but is by no means limited to the GNU GPL. However,
all packages in main depend only on other packages in main (implying all
DFSG-compliant), whereas packages in contrib depend on non-DFSG-compliant
packages, or on programs not packaged by the Debian project. non-free
contains any non-DFSG-compliant packages.

Section 2.1 of the Policy Manual contains the gory details
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

Gary.

-- 
Gary Coady..http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~gary/
   ... lend your voices only to sounds of freedom. No longer lend your
      strength to that which you wish to be free from.          --- Jewel