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

Marc Paré marc at marcpare.com
Fri Oct 15 21:05:16 CEST 2010


Le 2010-10-15 07:42, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
> 2010/10/15 Anssi Hannula<anssi.hannula at iki.fi>:
>>
>> Seems sensible to ask the mirror owners. It is possible some of them have not
>> been aware of the problem at all, so I think we should make sure they
>> understand that Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, etc. also contain patented technologies
>> (to avoid the situation where they are willing to mirror Ubuntu/Debian/Arch
>> but not allow patented software in Mageia, just because the other
>> distributions didn't notify them of the issue; if they don't want to mirror
>> Mageia if it contained patent-encumbered software, they really shouldn't be
>> mirroring those other distributions either).
>
> As mirror maintainer/owner of Mandriva Linux and future Mageia
> (ftp.mandrivauser.de) I discussed this problem with my friends and we
> decided not to mirror PLF although a German university does
> (ftp.gwdg.de). The point is that our mirror is hosted on a private
> server where just one person is liable (me, unfortunately). But we
> also decided to mirror the non-free branch of Mandriva Linux. There is
> non-free and there is patented and/or legally unclear software - we
> will definitely stay away from the latter when mirroring Mageia.
> Making a difference between such software on the parent mirror will
> make it easy for mirrors such as ours. Distributing such software in
> the same branches as "normal" software will make it impossible to
> mirror Mageia.
>

Thanks for the post Wobo. You are the first response to this discussion 
that has shown a "real life / concrete" example of the concern that one 
has to consider when mirroring packages.

I really think that this thread is leading nowhere and it obviously 
needs to be discussed with the main devs and Mageia core group along 
with individuals knowledgeable in international law, if we want to set 
things straight right from the start.

Marc



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