Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 01:04:10PM +0100, J?r?me Marant wrote: I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. One of my initial packages was non-free (still is, although I hold out hope for a licence change at some point). I suggest that a better policy is closer to this: New maintainers applying as packagers should contribute something to main as part of their tasks and skills check. This could either be new packages or adopting existing ones. They may submit work they've done in contrib or non-free, which may help the AM judge their packaging abilities, but this work should not be considered sufficient to pass the check. I wouldn't have objected to this when I was applying - I had packages in main too. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 06:06:50AM -0600, Colin Watson wrote: On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 01:04:10PM +0100, J?r?me Marant wrote: I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. One of my initial packages was non-free (still is, although I hold out hope for a licence change at some point). I suggest that a better policy is closer to this: New maintainers applying as packagers should contribute something to main as part of their tasks and skills check. This could either be new packages or adopting existing ones. They may submit work they've done in contrib or non-free, which may help the AM judge their packaging abilities, but this work should not be considered sufficient to pass the check. I wouldn't have objected to this when I was applying - I had packages in main too. Perhaps to ensure that the tasks skills check still means something, there should be some quantifying of just how bad an existing package has to be to qualify -- e.g., a given number of policy violations in the packaging, a standards version below such and such a version. Other than that, I certainly agree. Fixing a piece of unmaintained free software is usually more important to the quality of the distro than introducing another piece of non-free software, or even introducing another piece of /free/ software that will be used by few people. While there's merit in requiring NMs to create packages from scratch because it means understanding the process from start to finish, there's lots of work to be done in Debian -- such as QA -- that doesn't involve creating new packages. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer pgpJSE0PUMxfK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: One of my initial packages was non-free (still is, although I hold out hope for a licence change at some point). I suggest that a better policy is closer to this: New maintainers applying as packagers should contribute something to main as part of their tasks and skills check. This could either be new packages or adopting existing ones. They may submit work they've done in contrib or non-free, which may help the AM judge their packaging abilities, but this work should not be considered sufficient to pass the check. I second this. You perfectly expressed what I had in mind. Cheers, -- Jérôme Marant
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 01:04:10PM +0100, Jérôme Marant wrote: Hi, I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. Sponsoring a package imply support for that package, and Debian want to support even non free package. We have our own Free Software Guideline to which we must refer for licensing and redistribution. Free Software integralism do not help Debian. -- Luca - De Whiskey's - De Vitis aliases: Luca ^De [A-Z][A-Za-z\-]*[iy]'\?s$
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On 14 Jan 2002, Jérôme Marant wrote: Hi, Hi Jérôme, I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. do you also implicitely say that I do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software because I do maintain a non-free package (xsnow)? It's clear that free software is better than non-free software but please don't forget that you agreed that We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian. cu Adrian
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 01:04:10PM +0100, J?r?me Marant wrote: I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. It's only fair to suggest that you may wish to start with the membership we already have. The last time this particular part of our philosophy was addressed, there was a significant group of people voicing the opinion that Debian needed its non-free software. Ahh, but Debian doesn't have non-free software! (wink, wink..) As much as I'd love to see an infusion of new blood into the project which would just as soon be rid of non-free in Debian, it's unreasonable to have a nontechnical barrier to entry which doesn't apply to existing members. The additional technical hurdles make sense given that new maintainers do tend to make mistakes. It's also true that packaging software for Debian has become significantly more complex with the introduction of things like source-deps and debconf and there are more places for a newbie to make those mistakes. But this isn't a technical hurdle. It's a political one designed to help maintain the facade that the stuff in non-free is not in fact part of Debian. -- Joseph Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED]Don't feed the sigs The purpose of having mailing lists rather than having newsgroups is to place a barrier to entry which protects the lists and their users from invasion by the general uneducated hordes. -- Ian Jackson pgpcdYRpAZXZV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
Adrian Bunk [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hi Jérôme, I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. do you also implicitely say that I do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software because I do maintain a non-free package (xsnow)? No, don't. I'm just telling that asking for a sponsor for non-free packages is not helping the project. Non-free software are not part of Debian which main goal is to release a 100% Free Software distribution. I wonder if such people really know that Debian is not only about technique but also philosophy. It is the role of sponsors to check that. It's clear that free software is better than non-free software but please don't forget that you agreed that We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian. I'd like to remind that Debian does not support non-free software but _tolerates_ them. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On 01/14/2002 10:05:52 AM af_mara wrote: Adrian Bunk [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It's clear that free software is better than non-free software but please don't forget that you agreed that We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian. I'd like to remind that Debian does not support non-free software but _tolerates_ them. I disagree with Jérôme Marant, with evidence supporting that disagreement below: http://www.debian.org/social_contract 1. We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software Adrian could have made it clearer he was quoting the social contract as opposed to stating his personal opinion.
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
Vince Mulhollon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I disagree with Jérôme Marant, with evidence supporting that disagreement below: This is strange that you did not even comment the first part of my message. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
Hi Jérôme, Le Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 01:04:10PM +0100, Jérôme Marant écrivait: Hi, I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. Sponsors are free to decide who they sponsor and what they sponsor. There's no need for any new rule ... May i let you know that when I packaged sympa, it was in non-free and that it was my first Debian package ? (jérôme is the maintainer of sympa now and it has gotten a free software partly because I asked the authors to change the license to meet the DFSG) There's no need for any new rule about the sponsorship. People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. That's not true. I'm the counter example. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog -+- http://strasbourg.linuxfr.org/~raphael/ Formation Linux et logiciel libre : http://www.logidee.com
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
I propose that we do not sponsor people for non-free packages. [...] People that we want to join us and seeking sponsors for non-free package are showing that they do not understand our philosophy and dedication to Free Software. Debian *does* support non-free software -- users are simply supposed to read the licenses before they install it. Here's a statement from http://www.debian.org/intro/about: Although Debian believes in free software, there are cases where people want or need to put commercial software on their machine. Whenever possible Debian will support this. There are even a growing number of packages whose sole job is to install commercial software into a Debian system. I happen to agree with this philosophy, but even if you don't, we need to decide this as a group and stick with it. As long as we have a non-free section, let's do as good of a job with it as we can -- and that includes attracting developers to support it. Lex Spoon
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 05:41:31AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote: it's unreasonable to have a nontechnical barrier to entry which doesn't apply to existing members. Agreed. -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 05:05:52PM +0100, Jérôme Marant wrote: I'm just telling that asking for a sponsor for non-free packages is not helping the project. If the package is useful it is helping the users. I wonder if such people really know that Debian is not only about technique but also philosophy. It is the role of sponsors to check that. And banning non-free sponsored packages will ensure that sponsors check that the newbie maintainer is philosophically in line with Debian? That's not non sequitur but it ain't too far off either :) -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Re: About sponsoring non-free packages
On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 11:58:23PM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote: On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 05:05:52PM +0100, Jérôme Marant wrote: I'm just telling that asking for a sponsor for non-free packages is not helping the project. If the package is useful it is helping the users. I wonder if such people really know that Debian is not only about technique but also philosophy. It is the role of sponsors to check that. And banning non-free sponsored packages will ensure that sponsors check that the newbie maintainer is philosophically in line with Debian? That's not non sequitur but it ain't too far off either :) Well, putting two and two together, I think the original post was actually regarding a proposed package that allowed source to be distributed with debian only, which would still put it in non-free, but at least the upstream authors are prepared to negotiate their code's liberty. So all may not be as bad as it sounds. Pete
