[Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc

Wed Oct 13 20:22:01 CEST 2010

Le mardi 12 octobre 2010 à 18:02 +0300, Anssi Hannula a écrit :
+> Hi all!
+> 
+> Do people have any thoughts on what kind of repository/media sectioning we 
+> should use on Mageia, and what should those sections contain?
+> 
+> Note that I won't talk about backports / private repositories in this post, 
+> only about the basic sectioning and packages in those.
+> 
+> Some points to consider (I've written my opinion in ones where I have one):
+> 
+> == Do we want a separated core repository?
+> 
+> No separated core: Fedora, Debian, Opensuse
+> Separated core: Mandriva (main), Ubuntu (main), Arch (Core)
+
+How do we decide what would be in core ?
+
+
+> == How are the sections named? :)
+> 
+> I think I'm in favor of renaming 'contrib' to 'extra'.
+
++1, if we decide to keep contrib
+
+
+> == Where do firmware without license go (DVB, V4L, etc)?
+> 
+> To unsupported non-free repository: Ubuntu (multiverse) [1],
+> To unsupported repository without binary packages: Arch (AUR)
+> Nowhere: Debian, Fedora, Opensuse, Mandriva
+> 
+> I guess for this one I'd prefer a helper draktool to handle/download these 
+> instead of shipping them ourselves.
+
+If there is no licence, I would say "Nowhere". This is just illegal
+under most country laws, despites likely to be uneforced by
+rightholders. So, even if I think the legal risk is low, I would say
+"no" because this is a question of free software ethics more than laws.
+
+> 
+> == What about patents?
+> 
+> Almost no software with patents: Fedora, Opensuse
+>  - Essentially no media codecs except theora/vorbis/ogg/vp8 etc.
+>  - Strange exception: libXft, Cairo and Qt4 are shipped with LCD filtering
+>    support enabled, even if it is disabled in freetype
+> 
+> No software with enforced patents: Debian
+>  - not included (at least): x264 (encoder), lame mp3 (encoder)
+>  - included (at least): MPEG/x decoders, H.264 decoders, MP3 decoders,
+>    AAC decoders, AMR decoders, DTS decoders, AC3 decoders,
+>    WMV/WMA decoders, realvideo decoders, etc
+> 
+> Some software covered by patents not included: Mandriva
+>  - see below for more information
+> 
+> All software covered by patents allowed: Arch, Ubuntu
+> 
+> 
+> IMO we should alter our policy to match either Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu.. The 
+> Mandriva policy makes no sense (for example, no AAC decoder but yes for H.264 
+> decoder and MPEG-4 encoder?).
+> I'm really not sure which way we should go, though. WDYT?
+
+I would go the Debian way. 
+Ubuntu and Fedora are tied to companies, and Debian is not, so their
+policies are likely more adapted to our own model.
+
+Debian way seems to be more pragmatic that Ubuntu/Fedora on that matter.
+
+> == Do we allow P2P file transfer software?
+> 
+> Yes: Arch, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu
+> No, except torrents: Mandriva
+> Unknown, at least torrents allowed: Opensuse
+
+I would say "yes". The reason of the rule in Mandriva was unclear and
+not justified, IMHO.
+
+Afaik, it was just "there is lots of lawsuits going on this, let's
+forbid it". Maybe if someone can get in touch with Lenny, he can explain
+us, but I think this was not baked by anything.
+
+> 
+> == And gaming emulators?
+> 
+> Allowed: Arch, Debian, Ubuntu
+> Mostly no, but at least fuse-emulator is shipped: Fedora
+> Unknown, but lots of them are in OBS 'Emulators' project (unofficial but in 
+> official mirrors): Opensuse
+> No, but at least zsnes is shipped: Mandriva
+
+Well, why separate gamin emulator from regular emulator ?
+
+The legal risk is near zero in both case, given the few cases since 10
+years. Sony lost the lawsuit against Bleem
+( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem! ), and again Connectix
+( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Game_Station ). 
+
+The only recent case I can think of is when Nintendo asked to Youtube
+and Apple to remove a application that looked like a DS. Given the speed
+of Apple and Youtube to remove contents and software, we cannot consider
+this as a legal basis for anything.
+
+
+>From what I have seen, emulators are much likely to be dropped because
+they are unmaintained than others reasons. 
+
+And Fedora rational about this
+( https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Emulators ) is IMHO
+weak. I know people who play to the game they bought on their console, I
+know people who play to game they developed, and we even have people who
+ported linux ( like dslinux, but the site seems down ).
+
+So I would align on Debian policy ( and as the zsnes maintainer, I have
+no idea of why it was allowed in contrib while the others one didn't ).
+
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+