Your message dated Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:55:50 -0600
with message-id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
and subject line Bug#340707: rar support violates DFSG #4
has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what I am
talking about this indicates a serious mail system misconfiguration
somewhere. Please contact me immediately.)
Debian bug tracking system administrator
(administrator, Debian Bugs database)
--------------------------------------
Received: (at submit) by bugs.debian.org; 25 Nov 2005 10:20:13 +0000
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri Nov 25 02:20:13 2005
Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Received: from 216.red-62-57-140.user.auna.net ([62.57.140.216]
helo=khazad.dyndns.org)
by spohr.debian.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1Efage-0005Hd-Rs
for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Fri, 25 Nov 2005 02:20:13 -0800
Received: from rmh by khazad.dyndns.org with local (Exim 4.54)
id 1Efage-0002O9-D8; Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:20:12 +0100
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
From: Robert Millan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: rar support violates DFSG #4
X-Mailer: reportbug 3.17
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:20:12 +0100
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
(1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on spohr.debian.org
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-7.5 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00,HAS_PACKAGE,
RCVD_IN_SORBS autolearn=no version=2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
Package: xmms-modplug
Severity: serious
Justification: DFSG #4
This package has a "Suggests: rar" tag. If it has the functionality to create
rar archives via rar, this is a serious problem, because it is encouraging users
to create "trap archives" that can't be extracted with free software. I believe
this is a violation of DFSG #4 ("Our priorities are our users and free
software") since we put:
- A minority of our users (those who use rar to publish data).
before:
- The majority of our users (who can't extract the data in a pure Debian
system).
- The free software community, for which trap archive formats are seriously
detrimental.
OTOH, if this package is only using rar to extract these archives, then it'd be
better to use the unrar package instead (in that case severity of this bug
should be lowered).
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-1-k7
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL
set to C)
---------------------------------------
Received: (at 340707-done) by bugs.debian.org; 28 Nov 2005 23:56:12 +0000
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Nov 28 15:56:12 2005
Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Received: from wsip-68-224-223-13.br.no.cox.net
([68.224.223.13] helo=resonant.org ident=postfix)
by spohr.debian.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1Egsqw-0000sr-CW; Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:56:11 -0800
Received: by resonant.org (Postfix, from userid 1000)
id 171FADE3AE; Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:55:51 -0600 (CST)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:55:50 -0600
From: Zed Pobre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Robert Millan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#340707: rar support violates DFSG #4
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Mail-Followup-To: Zed Pobre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Robert Millan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[email protected]
References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-md5;
protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="ZGiS0Q5IWpPtfppv"
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-No-Archive: Yes
X-GPG-Fingerprint: FF 75 8D 70 57 8D A4 7D 3A DE 6D 2F 25 C3 E6 E7
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
(1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on spohr.debian.org
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-6.0 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00,HAS_BUG_NUMBER
autolearn=no version=2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02
X-CrossAssassin-Score: 4
--ZGiS0Q5IWpPtfppv
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 11:11:32AM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 07:44:08PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I
> > > could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to
> > > -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place).
> >=20
> > Yes, I still disagree with this reasoning. People of conscience
> > may disagree on whether *preventing* the creation of files that
> > can't be read with free software is serving the goals of the DFSG.
> > In the absence of agreement on this point, I don't think it's
> > right to treat this as a release-critical bug unless the
> > *maintainer* agrees with you.
>=20
> That suggests if the maintainer disagrees in, say, DFSG #1 ("Debian
> will remain 100% free"), then we don't have to treat as
> release-critical an inclussion of non-free in main.
I'm the maintainer of xmms-modplug, the target of one of these bug
reports. In fact, I *do* disagree with your reasoning throughout, all
the way up to your conclusions about non-free in main. Using Suggests
as opposed to Recommends shows that the package will function just
fine without the non-free component, which is the reason why packages
in main are allowed to Suggests a non-free package, but not Recommends
one. (And now my internal grammar monitor is screaming, but fixing
this paragraph would make it cumbersome.)
In my particular case, however, it's mostly moot, as xmms-modplug
doesn't create rar files. I attempted at one point to use the free
unrar instead of rar to get it to work, and discovered to my dismay
that the free unrar isn't command-line compatible with rar, and
doesn't open modern rar files. I decided at the time that the free
unrar was basically not ready for use, and abandoned any further
attempts to use it. This situation does not appear to have changed,
and I am closing the bug. At such time that the free unrar actually
does serve as a drop-in replacement for reading rar files, feel free
to file a new bug report, but as it stands, I am refusing to cripple
the package's ability to deal with a non-free format just because it's
non-free. I suspect that this reasoning will extend to every other
package that uses rar just for reading.
> I think I'll try to expose better my point, and also move it to -legal.
>=20
> DFSG #4 states:
>=20
> "We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software
> community. We will place their interests first in our
> priorities."
>=20
> I think it's very clear that the free software community is harmed
> by promoting trap formats like RAR, so I won't extend on that.
I think you're a little unclear on the difference between promoting a
format and failing to actively discourage a format. If you were
filing bug reports only on packages that *defaulted* to writing RAR,
I'd agree with you. However, some users may have legitimate need to
write files in proprietary formats such as RAR (e.g. for reasons of
communication with an organization that they don't control), and by
going out of your way to disable that ability, you *violate* DFSG #4.
All you're doing for people in this category is making free software
unusable for their needs, and driving them to completely non-free
solutions.
--=20
Zed Pobre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a.k.a. Zed Pobre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
PGP key and fingerprint available on finger; encrypted mail welcomed.
--ZGiS0Q5IWpPtfppv
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.5
iQEVAwUBQ4uZBh0207zoJUw5AQGuFQgAgaE1Kqm3tTSASGtW+ZRcQxeOLpRj0BBd
QhGHZPMJWFBghAbPwQhi47znVoUWRq/qclqvO+XUWN18S/mOkF0N9nckxC/UY1x9
HSlZQgrTUI5Gkaxt6qIW8L5wlWTSp1sZYX4Rcub4TymzinXLm6K7OUwTpr4fDuyD
Xh5goR3iwcE77EqZ5Bv3vY6QmaE1je/hG89BXXpP8o6LFWk3BhlFU/HF+QDJchc6
KYgU0l8oBoOh1PQHwDLkdpHmqLbjyNs2vRdPcg8MsLK4s7VPEBiA4UCPWNk8bPMc
ZjoGw8ElWp6CZqqfR1DUQuEs+XM0w8aq1IRuVgSLQ0M2tVb87Zt5kA==
=g0xO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--ZGiS0Q5IWpPtfppv--
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
