add initial work on the decision for 681419

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+===== TITLE
+
+Alternate Dependencies on non-free packages in main
+
+===== WEB SUMMARY
+
+The committee resolves that alternatiave dependencies on non-free
+packages are permisible in main.
+
+===== EMAIL INTRO
+
+The technical committe was asked in #681419 by the policy maintainers
+to determine as a matter of technical whether alternative dependencies
+on non-free packages were acceptable in main.
+
+===== EMAIL EPILOGUE
+
+The committee would like to thank everyone who participated in the
+discussion of #681419.
+
+===== DECISION
+
+Whereas:
+
+1. The Debian Policy Manual states (§2.2.1) that packages in main
+   "must not require or recommend a package outside of main for
+   compilation or execution".  Both "Depends: package-in-non-free" and
+   "Recommends: package-in-non-free" clearly violate this requirement.
+   The Technical Committee has been asked to determine whether a
+   dependency of the form "package-in-main | package-in-non-free"
+   complies with this policy requirement, or whether virtual packages
+   must instead be used to avoid mentioning the non-free alternative.
+
+2. Both options have the following effects in common, meeting the
+   standard that main should be functional and useful while being
+   self-contained:
+
+  (a) Package managers configured to consider only main will install
+      package-in-main.
+
+  (b) Package managers configured to consider both main and non-free
+      will prefer to install package-in-main, but may install
+      package-in-non-free instead if so instructed, or if
+      package-in-main is uninstallable.
+
+  (c) If package-in-non-free is already installed, package managers
+      will proceed without installing package-in-main.
+
+3. The significant difference between these two options is that the
+   former makes the non-free alternative visible to everyone who
+   examines the dependency relationship, while the latter does not.
+
+4. Merely mentioning that a non-free alternative exists does not
+   constitute a recommendation of that alternative.  For example, many
+   free software packages state quite reasonably that they can be
+   compiled and executed on non-free platforms.
+
+5. Furthermore, virtual packages are often a clumsy way to express
+   these kinds of alternatives.  If a package happens to require any
+   of several implementations of a facility that have a certain
+   option, then it can either depend on suitable alternatives
+   directly, or its maintainer can first attempt to have fine-grained
+   virtual packages added to each of the packages they wish to permit.
+   In some cases this may be appropriate, but it can easily turn into
+   quite a heavyweight approach.
+
+Therefore:
+
+6. The Technical Committee resolves that alternative dependencies of
+   the form "Depends: package-in-main | package-in-non-free" are
+   permissible in main, and do not constitute a violation of the
+   policy clause cited in point 1.
+
+7. We nevertheless recommend that packages in main consider carefully
+   whether this might cause the inadvertent installation of non-free
+   packages due to conflicts, especially those with usage
+   restrictions.
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