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.