Related to this perhaps was the Ion3 debacle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_%28window_manager%29#Controversy
Long story short: Ion3 developer did not want a certain feature. Debian added a patch for it. He got mad, pulled Ion3 out. Same with ArchLinux, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Stefan Seifert <n...@detonation.org> wrote: > On Wednesday 23 March 2016 11:07:34 David Golden wrote: > >> * I think we have to allow mass deletion, even if that de-indexes stuff. I >> think that's an author's right. > > I've never gotten that argument. The code in question is usually under a very > permissive license. Publishing code under such a license is a very conscious > decision of the author. People trust the author and build on this foundation. > Among those people are the ones that run CPAN and its mirrors. They too are > only allowed to distribute the code because the license says so. When people > download distros from CPAN they do so as sub licensees of whoever runs their > favorite CPAN mirror. > > Now if the original author decides to no longer publish her code, that's > absolutely fine. I just don't get why CPAN should follow suite and do the > same. We don't demand this of BackPAN and we don't demand the same from other > users who trusted the license. Why is CPAN literally the only entity that > should go beyond the license and do the author's bidding? Considering that > copyright exists solely to benefit the public, I have to ask: how is the > public served by this self censorship? > > Stefan
