[Mageia-dev] Mirror layout

Fri Dec 10 18:44:47 CET 2010

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 17:04, Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> wrote:
+> 2010/12/10 Romain d'Alverny <rdalverny at gmail.com>:
+>> Let's try this: what if we consider, at first, that software patents
+>> were a non-issue? (that is, we just consider they are all invalid as
+>> such).
+>
+> >From a mirror maintainer's view:
+> If I am in a country like France (not acknowledging SP) I can ignore
+> safely the issue
+> If I am in a country which does acknowledge SP I will have to decide
+> for myself if I want to take that risk. THis may be an easy decision
+> in some countries but in others (like the USA) it may be a hard
+> decision, also depending on who I am (a private person or a large
+> institution/organisation).
+>
+> >From the users's view:
+> Living in a country without SP (or not caring about the issue) it is
+> the easiest way. I can use automagical setup of media and need not
+> worry about an extra repo to set before I can watch my DVDs :)
+> Again in a country like USA I have to decide for myself - this would
+> be a nightmare if the "whatever-dubious" software is included in the
+> normal repos. I would have to find out by myself which is "ok" to use
+> and which is not.
+
+Ok, but you still take into account SP in your answer. :-p (we would
+have come to that, but the idea was to think about it from a naïve,
+software-patent-free perspective).
+
+So... let's take the European Union case, namely, no SP (see next §).
+We just don't have to split the media. Easier for everyone in this
+territory.
+
+Well, thing is, even though there is a European policy about that...
+it's been unbalanced and challenged for years. In the end, it's just a
+mess and law is lagging behind; if not just broken. So it's going to
+be, anyway, a battle of positions before something clear and
+"definitive" comes out.
+
+Still. What if? Where is it an issue to distribute/mirror then? Only where:
+ - SP do exist by law;
+ - and specific SP are registered on pieces of software distributed/mirrored;
+ - and these SP are not invalidated (de facto or obviously) by some prior art;
+ - and those SP are likely to be enforced (that is, practically, there
+is a minimum incentive for a patent holder to raise his hand; or, that
+it is worth it to enforce it).
+
+Coming back to my previous post, maybe we should just try something
+simple and go from that.
+
+Shall we take a stance despite SP (for they are just not relevant),
+worldwide or more reasonably have a simple, risk-management based
+attitude to alter our media/mirror policy only if something happens?
+
+That would relate somehow to Debian policy in this regard, as misc
+mentionned in the "Why validate software patents ?" thread on
+mageia-dev, Dec. 8th, ~12:58. And that sounds a decent attitude; see
+http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=365390#20 or
+http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/01/msg00316.html .
+
+So why not take it the same way, not have a distinct media and see
+what happens on notices?
+
+Yes, this would raise mirroring issues (that would occur anyway), that
+we can minify with a policy to manage that globaly; that when an issue
+is raised:
+ - try to fix it for the whole project, not just for some area, so the
+weight of the whole community (not only Mageia for that matter) is
+behind the case, and not only a local chapter;
+ - remove only software that gets a full score through this list (to
+be updated):
+   * has an identifiable patent registered on it (exact code/method,
+exact patent description);
+   * has been notified about by the holder (or representative);
+   * whose holder is identifiable;
+   * whose holder does not provide a free use license;
+   * which patent:
+     - has not expired;
+     - is not already invalidated;
+     - has no obvious prior art;
+     - is being actively enforced;
+   * other?
+ - such software or components would be made separately available only
+(so we still manage that it depends on the territory).
+
+So we start with an empty "tainted/whatever" media. And again, see
+what happens. That's an option.
+
+
+Romain
+