Subject: [bug#52109] [PATCH] gnu: Add unrar-free.

From: Liliana Marie Prikler <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2023 20:41:21 +0100

Am Mittwoch, dem 04.01.2023 um 00:32 -0500 schrieb kiasoc5:
> On 1/3/23 19:57, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:
> > 
> > While I appreciate your concern, I don't think it is a problem to
> > have unrar-free in GNU Guix; it is free software and respects the
> > GNU FSDG, as far as I can tell
> Debian and Fedora, whose package guidelines are generally free-
> software friendly (with some exceptions), include unrar-free.
> 
> https://repology.org/project/unrar-free/versions
Neither Debian nor Fedora are recommended GNU distros.  As for
Trisquel, which is, note how severely outdated the version there is.

More importantly,

Am Dienstag, dem 03.01.2023 um 19:57 -0500 schrieb Maxim Cournoyer:
> Since the program uses libarchive, it would think it supports the
> same features as libarchive itself.  Its value is in providing a
> simpler to use front-end CLI.

Yes, the supported features are exactly the libarchive feature set. 
However, I would argue that the value of providing this "simpler to use
front-end" is in fact a negative one.  For one, bsdtar's CLI is not
that complicated, but what's more, some programs like file-roller
(which let's be honest, the uninitiated user is more likely to use than
either CLI) have an escape hatch for non-libarchive implementations of
unrar.  Using this escape hatch to sneak in libarchive is plain silly
:)

Cheers