[Question about the backports deposits]

[Daniel Robitaille]

On Tue, 06 Sep 2005, Sylvain Alain wrote:
> Also, I want to know why the hoary-backports are official, and why the hoary-extras are not.
 
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=40291

From what I  understand (and I'm not   a backport user myself)
hoary-backports are official since they usually take official packages
from Breezy and bring them to Hoary; the latest Firefox is one example than
usually comes to mind.

As for Hoary-extra, according to that forum page, the packages in there are:

"Mainly, legally-risky packages fall under this category. Most
multimedia formats are patent/royalty protected, and some freeware
commercial Linux programs, like the official Acrobat Reader, also are
protected by strict EULA's."

These cannot make official for logal reasons.  Actually it may be very well be illegal
for you to even use some of these packages in your own country, and for the backport
team to distribute them. 


> Also, is there any source file(not binary) that I can use for the backports...

probably not.  For example acrobat is in the backport, but the source
isn't available.


> And is there any advantage to use the source or binary will do the job ?

You only need the source if you are going to recompile a package
yourself; something most users don't need to do.

 
Daniel

-- 
Daniel Robitaille