open-vm-tools should be in universe (not multiverse)

[Craig]

Binary package hint: open-vm-tools

According to the COPYING file bundled with open-vm-tools releases, the license is LGPL 2.1.

According to http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/components, multiverse is for non-free software, and universe if for free software. Seeing as how the LGPL is a free license, open-vm-tools should be in universe, not multiverse.

[James Westby (james-w)]

I think the reason it is currently in multiverse is that it is in contrib in Debian.

It is there because it requires vmware to work, so is an "accessory to a non-free
program", which puts it in contrib in Debian.

Does this same thing apply in Ubuntu?

I can't see any reason to stop it moving to restricted aside from the above
(license is LPGL, only depends on main/universe packages), so if we do not
have the rule that only being useful with non-free software not in the archive
requires the package to be in multiverse then we can move it.

Thanks,

James

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

We've always generally mapped contrib in Debian to multiverse in Ubuntu, with the same restriction - if it isn't useful in some way with free software only, it shouldn't be in main/universe. Does open-vm-tools have any utility if you aren't running VMware?

[Craig (candrews-integralblue)]

samba is in main, and it is only really used for interaction with non-Free software. Shouldn't this Free software be in universe by that logic?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

samba is also used for Unix-to-Unix filesharing. what is the free-software-only use case for open-vm-tools?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

With no evidence that this package is usable without non-free software, I'm closing this report as invalid.