This program was written specifically for Debian by Bill Geddes and
Bdale Garbee in January of 1999.
The effort resulted from a series of discussions with Richard
M. Stallman about the problem posed by the existence of the non-free
tree on many Debian FTP sites to users who wish to run a system of
entirely Free Software. The goal is to make it easy for a Debian user
to know what non-free software is currently installed on their system so
that they can make conscious decisions about what software to use.
Presently, check-dfsg-status also shows the user if any packages from the
contrib section is used.
In 2022 Holger Levsen renamed it from 'vrms' to 'check-dfsg-status'
as suggested in #962696.
Things that are on our wish list:
- augment the script to support a "verbose" option, which would display
some text from the collected public writings of RMS, et al, helping
to explain the issues posed by non-free software.
- further augment the verbose option to make specific comments about
each non-free package... for example, explain the patent issues
surrounding the GIF image format.
- process dependency information to report what DFSG-compliant package,
if any, may have led to the installation of each non-free package.
Feel free to let us know if you have any other good ideas! The best way to do
so would be to file a wishlist bug against the package 'check-dfsg-status' in
the Debian Bug Tracking System.
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