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

[andre999]

Anssi Hannula a écrit :
> On 06.07.2011 16:04, Ahmad Samir wrote:
>> 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...
>
> I don't remember saying that. Any consistent solution is acceptable to
> me (including put-in-nonfree, put-in-tainted, put-in-nowhere).
>
> There was opposition (from e.g. misc) to having nonfree stuff in
> tainted, though.

This discussion reminds me of the recent Oracle claims of patent infringement 
against Google, over Google's use of Java in Android.
These patents were all issued by the US patent office.
Google referred about 100 of these claims to the patent office for evaluation.
The patent office invalidated all but 17.
And these 17 may yet be invalidated by the courts.

Google has not yet referred many other of the patent claims for examination by 
the patent office.

So patent claims only _potentially_ result in legal problems. (As well as only 
in a few countries.)
Which makes me think that the free/non-free distinction is probably much more 
important.

My 2 cents :)
-- 
André