[Mageia-dev] About panotools patent problem (and other problematic rpms)

Thu Feb 24 07:13:37 CET 2011

Ahmad Samir a écrit :
+>
+> On 22 February 2011 20:09, andre999<andr55 at laposte.net>  wrote:
+>>
+>> <aside>
+>> First of all, "tainted" in English implies that the software doesn't work.
+>>   (Unless it refers to food, in which case it means "poisonous".)
+>> So we should choose a more appropriate name, such as "constrained", or use
+>> the Ubuntu approach and use a name which doesn't literally describe the
+>> contents. ("Multiverse", in their case.)
+>> Anything but something that implies that there is something inherently wrong
+>> with the package in question.
+>> That was one advantage of "plf", but of course that is already taken. And it
+>> is certainly advantageous to include such packages directly on Mageia
+>> mirrors.
+>> </aside>
+>>
+>> A Cleaner approach -- albeit more work -- would be for the "constrained"
+>> package to be an external module which adds the missing functionality. For
+>> less modular packages, this would be replacing (only) the files which
+>> provide the questioned functionality.
+>> For a typical a music player-type application, this would be only a be a few
+>> relatively small files.
+>>
+>> So a user that wants to add the "contrained" functionality would simply add
+>> an extra package, which obviously would have a different name based on the
+>> main package.
+>> (It would be useful to suggest adding such packages during installation, if
+>> the "contrained" repositories are selected.)
+>> (That is, if such a related package is available in selected repos.)
+>>
+>> Think of the gstreamer packages -- the "ugly" perhaps corresponding to the
+>> "constrained" packages being considered.
+>>
+>> my 2 cents :)
+>> --
+>> André
+>>
+>
+> Just a small note, if you didn't like the colour of the bike shed you
+> should have discussed the point before it was built, painted, the
+> paint has dried and is about to have new residents.
+>
+> And if you discussed the issue and your POV wasn't adapted, what's the
+> point re-emerging it now given that changing the new isn't easy now
+> that the infra- is already in place.
+
+In 4+ months, a lot will be changed/corrected.
+In my mind, this inappropriate name will tarnish Mageia.
+We can surely find a much more appropriate name.
+Since the repositories in question are empty, and will never be very 
+big, the cost of changing is minimal.
+
+> I like the name tainted, (note that the kernel does use the word
+> tainted to indicate there's a non-open source binary blob/driver e.g.
+> with the nvidia proprietary driver, so this usage is not unheard of).
+> :)
+
+And the word "tainted" wasn't used to indicate some kind of dysfunction 
+?  (Normally the kernel outputs ERROR messages.)
+
+I have encountered a kernel message containing "not tainted", to 
+indicate that a particular file was not corrupted.  (The bug was caused 
+by something else.)
+
+Regards :)
+-- 
+André
+