[Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc

[Lucien-Henry Horvath]

  Le 12/10/2010 19:31, Marc Paré a écrit :
> Hi Lucien, this is not directed to you but to the discussion on this 
> thread:
No problem for me ;-)
> There was actually nothing wrong with the Mandriva treatment of repos. 
> It clearly satisfied everyone's expectation of their installation. It 
> became a matter of user choice. By installing, by default, 
> non-licensed software you are not giving the user the choice. You are 
> then targeting a group of users who can install without legal 
> consequence. If Mageia.ca or Mageia.us etc. decided to organize, then 
> as entities, they would then become liable for the publication of 
> illegal software. In Canada, they are a little more lenient than in 
> the US. I cannot imagine anyone organising such a group in the US 
> where they would accept liability for this.
>
> If there is a choice of installing non-licensed software, then it 
> should be done at the user level and not at the Mageia level. 
> Non-licensed software will not be accepted by any educational 
> establishments, business, government, associations ...
>
> The safest route is to offer FOSS software (they are well known and 
> many have had their code audited) and leave the "fringe" softs on a 
> repo that is left to the users' choice as install.
>
> I thought that PLF were on board with the Mageia project. Does anyone 
> know?
>
> Marc

And why don't we affect specific packages to the country exactly like 
the localization is affected ? In France too the default install is 
certainly the choice of the educational establishments ... but in french 
FR_FR, not in EN_US.
So, why not a pre-selection of certain kind of packages in the same time 
of selection of the country in the install menu ?

Suggestion : (don't beat me please) :

Actually, we have team for translating the texts ... why not somes teams 
for choose between "free or not free" packages in localized variation of 
Mageia.
I know PLF (without that, no Mandriva on my PC), but I think that 
waiting the PLF adaptation, or have garbage free packages after PLF 
installation is not optimal.



Own remark : (No, no, don't beat ...)

Mageia is new, young, dynamical ... I suggest to use this situation for 
don't go in the same ways than the others ... With "free + PLF", we 
don't inovate in regard of the existing Mandriva / OpenSuse / Ubuntu / 
Slac/ etc ... etc ... we only repeat the old schema. Why do a new distro 
also ?