[Mageia-dev] Repository question: where do we put non-free+tainted RPMs?

Thu Jul 7 05:28:20 CEST 2011

Anssi Hannula a écrit :
+> On 06.07.2011 16:04, Ahmad Samir wrote:
+>> On 6 July 2011 14:27, Romain d'Alverny<rdalverny at gmail.com>  wrote:
+>>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 14:04, Ahmad Samir<ahmadsamir3891 at gmail.com>  wrote:
+>>>> On 6 July 2011 13:58, Romain d'Alverny<rdalverny at gmail.com>  wrote:
+>>>>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 12:10, Wolfgang Bornath<molch.b at googlemail.com>  wrote:
+>>>>>> If we go back to the beginning of the discussion where to put such
+>>>>>> packages which were in PLF we made a clear difference:
+>>>>>>
+>>>>>> 1. All non-free goes into non-free
+>>>>>>
+>>>>>> 2. Software which may be illegal in some countries (mostly because of
+>>>>>> licensing) will go into tainted.
+>>>>>>
+>>>>>> That's all. Clear and simple.
+>>>>>>
+>>>>>> The question about GPL or other free licenses is not touched by
+>>>>>> tainted. So, everything which does not have to go to tainted will go
+>>>>>> to free (core) or non-free, depending on it's status.
+>>>>>
+>>>>> Indeed. http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=licensing_policy#acceptable_licenses
+>>>>> says:
+>>>>>
+>>>>> "The tainted section accepts software under a license that is might be
+>>>>> free or open source and which cannot be redistributed publicly in
+>>>>> certain areas in the world, or due to patents issues."
+>>>>>
+>>>>> Reformulating it in an other, more explicit way maybe:
+>>>>>   - "core" hosts 100% free software that can be redistributed anywhere
+>>>>> (or almost, the world is a bit more complicated than that)
+>>>>>   - "nonfree" hosts non-free software that can be redistributed anywhere (same)
+>>>>>   - "tainted" hosts all the rest, be it free software or not.
+>>>>
+>>>> Third point is wrong, "a license that is might be free or open
+>>>> source", which, I think, means only software with an open source
+>>>> software License.
+>>>
+>>> I understand this as: software that might be free or open source =>
+>>> can be not free or open source. "might" expressed the possibility, not
+>>> the requirement. IOW, tainted does not discriminate free and non free
+>>> software.
+>>
+>> It does differentiate; given that Anssi is the one who worked on the
+>> tainted policy the most, and he doesn't think faac should be in
+>> tainted, is enough to say that the wording in the wiki needs to
+>> express our stance on the issue in a clearer way...
+>
+> I don't remember saying that. Any consistent solution is acceptable to
+> me (including put-in-nonfree, put-in-tainted, put-in-nowhere).
+>
+> There was opposition (from e.g. misc) to having nonfree stuff in
+> tainted, though.
+
+This discussion reminds me of the recent Oracle claims of patent infringement 
+against Google, over Google's use of Java in Android.
+These patents were all issued by the US patent office.
+Google referred about 100 of these claims to the patent office for evaluation.
+The patent office invalidated all but 17.
+And these 17 may yet be invalidated by the courts.
+
+Google has not yet referred many other of the patent claims for examination by 
+the patent office.
+
+So patent claims only _potentially_ result in legal problems. (As well as only 
+in a few countries.)
+Which makes me think that the free/non-free distinction is probably much more 
+important.
+
+My 2 cents :)
+-- 
+André
+