Hi,

I am new to Debian. I just got my 14 CDs and installed it all. So far, so good, after a little help from this forum's participants (thanks guys!) everything works and I am quite delighted with it all.

My question concerns the "contrib" packages? Are they free software or not? I thought that the 14 CDs only include free packages (free as in freedom, RMS -style) and that non-free packages for Debian were only available via dedicated servers. Now I discover that the 14 CDs have plenty of "contribs". What are they?

Also - where can I read up on Debian's policies concerning contribs, free and unfree packages, their support (or lack thereof) and where the non-free servers are (I do not intend to download any of them, but I am simply curious how many there are).

Many thanks!

I believe the contrib section is for free software that has some sort of dependency on non-free software, like Java software or something that was compiled with Delphi.

"All packages that are included in the official Debian distribution are free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. This assures free use and redistribution of the packages and their complete source code. The official Debian distribution is what is contained in the main section of the Debian archive.

As a service to our users, we also provide packages in separate sections that cannot be included in the main distribution due to either a restrictive license or legal issues. They include:

Contrib
Packages in this area are freely licensed by the copyright holder but depend on other software that is not free.
Non-Free
Packages in this area have some onerous license condition restricting use or redistribution of the software."
http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages