Nicolás A. Ortega <[email protected]> writes: > I've had this discussion in the Parabola Dev mailing list before, > however it did not gain much attention (due to a bunch of factors that > were going on at the time) and I also believe this is something that > would be more effective if done by a larger community such as this one, > where many of us are the same people involved in these Libre GNU/Linux > distros. > > During the huge debate there was over Chromium and whether or not it is > free, and Qt5 Webengine falling along with it, I was disturbed to see a > few issues with the entire ordeal. Firstly: information was not being > concentrated in a central location where everyone could see it, instead > you had to read through tens of e-mails from the mailing lists (Parabola > ones alone, I bet it would be hundreds if we're talking about other > communities as well) just to start to find what people are talking > about; secondly: there was hardly anyone looking into the validity of > these claims, but rather people immediately started to think about how > to deal with programs that depended on Chromium (like qt5-webengine) > despite there being no concrete evidence of any sort; thirdly: the > entire process has been going on for *way* too long, and certain > essential packages (like qt5-webengine) are still on blacklists with no > evidence incriminating them. Therefore, some time ago, on the Parabola > Dev mailing list, I proposed a Quarantine Policy that could be put in > place to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. It would be nice > to see this done by all libre projects together collectively. So I will > post in this e-mail a draft I came up with way back when: > > 1. When a package is suspected of being non-free in any way or form some > superficial evidence should be provided, if not then the suspicion > should be lifted as there is not even the most minimal amount of > evidence. If there is, then we continue. > > 2. The packages in question should be put under quarantine. That is, > temporarily removed from the repos of our libre distros. At this point > an entry on some wiki (or even an etherpad) should be made where > *absolutely all evidence* should be posted. What's more, only evidence > posted in this place should be considered in order to encourage its use. > > 3. If after X amount of time (I think a month should do) no concrete > evidence has been found (that is, pointing to the actual files/code or > part of the project that is non-free where absolutely everyone can see > it for themselves without a need to rely on other people's judgement) > then the package should be removed from quarantine. If concrete evidence > has at any point been found then it should be kept blacklisted and > upstream should be notified of the problem *immediately*. > > 4. If the package has been released from quarantine and new evidence > arises then we move back to step 1. If this reoccurs several times then > it may be necessary to increase the amount of time in quarantine. > > Changes to this process are welcome, but I don't like seeing things > being blacklisted for absolutely no reason, and I don't like that we're > all running around like headless chickens on this kind of issue. We need > to be organized, and organization among large groups will require some > kind of policy.
I think is up to each distro to decide if they want a policy like this and what it is. I wouldn't choose this one; fsf affords the free distros the leeway to make mistakes with respect to licensing as long as they promptly correct them and I think the distros can afford the same leeway to upstream developers if the circumstance calls for it. It sounds like a comprehensive summary needs to be made for qt5-webengine. Again, it's up to the distros on whether to mandate a place for this or not. Some people will be more comfortable using a mailing list. If you want to use a wiki, the talk page of an entry on the free software directory is a good place I have used it in the past to document licensing issues. -- Ian Kelling https://iankelling.org _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
