[Mageia-dev] Repository question: where do we put non-free+tainted RPMs?

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2011/7/6 Ahmad Samir <ahmadsamir3891 at gmail.com>:
> On 6 July 2011 14:27, Romain d'Alverny <rdalverny at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 14:04, Ahmad Samir <ahmadsamir3891 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 6 July 2011 13:58, Romain d'Alverny <rdalverny at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 12:10, Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>>> If we go back to the beginning of the discussion where to put such
>>>>> packages which were in PLF we made a clear difference:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. All non-free goes into non-free
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. Software which may be illegal in some countries (mostly because of
>>>>> licensing) will go into tainted.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's all. Clear and simple.
>>>>>
>>>>> The question about GPL or other free licenses is not touched by
>>>>> tainted. So, everything which does not have to go to tainted will go
>>>>> to free (core) or non-free, depending on it's status.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed. http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=licensing_policy#acceptable_licenses
>>>> says:
>>>>
>>>> "The tainted section accepts software under a license that is might be
>>>> free or open source and which cannot be redistributed publicly in
>>>> certain areas in the world, or due to patents issues."
>>>>
>>>> Reformulating it in an other, more explicit way maybe:
>>>>  - "core" hosts 100% free software that can be redistributed anywhere
>>>> (or almost, the world is a bit more complicated than that)
>>>>  - "nonfree" hosts non-free software that can be redistributed anywhere (same)
>>>>  - "tainted" hosts all the rest, be it free software or not.
>>>
>>> Third point is wrong, "a license that is might be free or open
>>> source", which, I think, means only software with an open source
>>> software License.
>>
>> I understand this as: software that might be free or open source =>
>> can be not free or open source. "might" expressed the possibility, not
>> the requirement. IOW, tainted does not discriminate free and non free
>> software.
>
> It does differentiate; given that Anssi is the one who worked on the
> tainted policy the most, and he doesn't think faac should be in
> tainted, is enough to say that the wording in the wiki needs to
> express our stance on the issue in a clearer way...

The point we made when discussing these issues was:

 - to provide a section where people who only want free software can
have all free software (core)
 - to provide a section where people who want non-free software
(mainly proprietary drivers, plugins, codecs) can have their drivers,
plugins, whatever (non-free)
 - to provide a section where we can put software which may be illegal
to use in certain countries (some codecs, libdvdcss2, etc.), so users
and mirror maintainers in such countries can decide for themselves to
use this or not (tainted)

That's all. Now saying that faac should not be in tainted, where
should it go if not in tainted? How does faac differ to other software
which is in tainted? The only reason it should not be in tainted would
be that we can not distribute it at all.
This brings us back to the core of the discussion what kind of
software Mageia should or should not provide.

-- 
wobo