Bug#856139: [pkg-go] Bug#856139: certspotter: long description advertises commercial service

[Dr. Bas Wijnen]

On Sun, Aug 06, 2017 at 02:15:17PM +0200, Vincent Bernat wrote:
>  ❦  4 août 2017 20:03 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard  :
> > No, at worst this is misuse of Debian ressources for commercial gain - 
> > i.e. using long description field for advertising a non-free service.
> 
> We have all kind of software advertising non-free services. Search for
> "Google" or "Amazon". The comparison is even unfair as the service
> advertised here is available as free software (not the case for most
> services from Amazon and Google we advertise).

If other packages are worse, that means they should be fixed, not that this
should be allowed.

> Example: [s3cmd]

How is this not in contrib?  This software is useless without the non-free
service (which is also software, and it is not in main) from Amazon.  Policy
even mentions as an example for things in contrib: wrapper packages or other
sorts of free accessories for non-free programs.  That's exactly what this is.

I didn't know that this was in main, and I expect most others to not know
either.  But I don't think they should be.  I wouldn't expect this to be
controversial, but it seems that it is, given that you suggest they obviously
belong in main?

To be clear: the sort of software (of this type) I expect in main is like
mumble: it connects to a server, and you can connect to a commercially hosted
server if you want to, but you can also run your own server, because it's free
software.  If the mumble server would not be free, and the only way to use the
client was to connect to a commercial server, mumble should not be in main.

As I wrote, I expected there to be consensus on this.  Am I incorrect about
that?

Thanks,
Bas


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Bug#856139: [pkg-go] Bug#856139: certspotter: long description advertises commercial service

[Chris Lamb]

Hi,

> We have all kind of software advertising non-free services. Search for
> "Google" or "Amazon".

The important distinction here is not that that we mention services
that commercial (or even non-free), but rather between descriptive and
(quasi-) objective phrases such as:

Cert Spotter is also available as a hosted service

and clauses that are bordering on advertising:

… and requires zero setup 

I am uncomfortable with the latter appearing in long descriptions.


Regards,

-- 
  ,''`.
 : :'  : Chris Lamb
 `. `'`  la...@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
   `-

Bug#856139: [pkg-go] Bug#856139: certspotter: long description advertises commercial service

[Vincent Bernat]

 ❦  4 août 2017 20:03 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard  :

> Am I alone in finding it wrong to promote commercial services in long 
> descriptions of packages n Debian main?

I agree with Faidon on this one. Just saying that because the way you
ask the question is more likely to get the opposite answers.

>> At worst, this is "irrelevant" as you put it,
>
> No, at worst this is misuse of Debian ressources for commercial gain - 
> i.e. using long description field for advertising a non-free service.

We have all kind of software advertising non-free services. Search for
"Google" or "Amazon". The comparison is even unfair as the service
advertised here is available as free software (not the case for most
services from Amazon and Google we advertise).

Example:

Description: command-line Amazon S3 client
 Command-line tool to upload, retrieve and manage data in Amazon S3 service
 (http://www.amazon.com/s3/), designed for use in scripts. Features:
  - creating and destroying S3 buckets
  - uploading and downloading files
  - listing remote files
  - removing remote files
  - synchronizing local directories to S3 buckets
  - getting various information about buckets and disk usage
 .
 s3cmd supports both (US and EU) S3 datacentres.
-- 
Make input easy to proofread.
- The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plauger)


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