[Mageia-dev] About panotools patent problem (and other problematic rpms)

[andre999]

Ahmad Samir a écrit :
>
> On 22 February 2011 20:09, andre999<andr55 at laposte.net>  wrote:
>>
>> <aside>
>> First of all, "tainted" in English implies that the software doesn't work.
>>   (Unless it refers to food, in which case it means "poisonous".)
>> So we should choose a more appropriate name, such as "constrained", or use
>> the Ubuntu approach and use a name which doesn't literally describe the
>> contents. ("Multiverse", in their case.)
>> Anything but something that implies that there is something inherently wrong
>> with the package in question.
>> That was one advantage of "plf", but of course that is already taken. And it
>> is certainly advantageous to include such packages directly on Mageia
>> mirrors.
>> </aside>
>>
>> A Cleaner approach -- albeit more work -- would be for the "constrained"
>> package to be an external module which adds the missing functionality. For
>> less modular packages, this would be replacing (only) the files which
>> provide the questioned functionality.
>> For a typical a music player-type application, this would be only a be a few
>> relatively small files.
>>
>> So a user that wants to add the "contrained" functionality would simply add
>> an extra package, which obviously would have a different name based on the
>> main package.
>> (It would be useful to suggest adding such packages during installation, if
>> the "contrained" repositories are selected.)
>> (That is, if such a related package is available in selected repos.)
>>
>> Think of the gstreamer packages -- the "ugly" perhaps corresponding to the
>> "constrained" packages being considered.
>>
>> my 2 cents :)
>> --
>> André
>>
>
> Just a small note, if you didn't like the colour of the bike shed you
> should have discussed the point before it was built, painted, the
> paint has dried and is about to have new residents.
>
> And if you discussed the issue and your POV wasn't adapted, what's the
> point re-emerging it now given that changing the new isn't easy now
> that the infra- is already in place.

In 4+ months, a lot will be changed/corrected.
In my mind, this inappropriate name will tarnish Mageia.
We can surely find a much more appropriate name.
Since the repositories in question are empty, and will never be very 
big, the cost of changing is minimal.

> I like the name tainted, (note that the kernel does use the word
> tainted to indicate there's a non-open source binary blob/driver e.g.
> with the nvidia proprietary driver, so this usage is not unheard of).
> :)

And the word "tainted" wasn't used to indicate some kind of dysfunction 
?  (Normally the kernel outputs ERROR messages.)

I have encountered a kernel message containing "not tainted", to 
indicate that a particular file was not corrupted.  (The bug was caused 
by something else.)

Regards :)
-- 
André