[Vrms-devel] Bug#850334: vrms outdated, incorrect - should it be released with stretch?

[Holger Levsen]

On Fri, Jan 06, 2017 at 11:28:08AM +1100, Stuart Prescott wrote:
> The vrms package is intended to offer explanations as to why packages are
> not free to help our users make informed choices about the software that
> they install. Its list of reasons is outdated; packages no longer exist
> and, in some cases, it incorrectly lists packages as being non-free that
> were successfully relicenced many years ago and now are free. Currently,
> only 7 of the 42 packages vrms knows about still exist and of those 7
> reasons, 2 are incorrect (angband and povray).

yes, it's buggy and the BTS even has some patches. I've recently considered
an NMU but then decided against it, to keep my sanity/workload…

> Its current functionality can be replaced entirely with:
> 
>     aptitude search '~i?or(~scontrib,~snon-free)' -F'%p %20s %d'
 
IOW: I do think it's still pretty useful today. I use it on many
machines via cron and am quite happy with it.

> Given that this package doesn't fulfil its goals, should it be included in
> the upcoming stretch release?

IMO you fail to proof your claim, yet you come to a quite drastic
conclusion.

> (Raising the severity of this bug will be enough to cause vrms to not
> be included in stretch.)

Please don't do that, this will help noone and harm some. Instead,
please NMU (or adapt/co-maintain) vrms!


-- 
cheers,
	Holger
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