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, vrms also shows the user if any packages from the contrib section is used. 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 package 'vrms' in the Debian Bug Tracking System. Contributions in form of code are also accepted, if you prefer to give a prototype of a feature that you would like vrms to have.