[Mageia-dev] rehashing the faac issue

[Johnny A. Solbu]

On Tuesday 30 October 2012 02:44, andre999 wrote:
> If there is some constraint on the redistribution of a package in some 
> countries, such as patent claims or encryption technology used or 
> whatever, mirrors in affected countries may reasonably want to avoid 
> carrying such packages.
> For this reason, we created the "tainted" repos, which are optional for 
> official mirrors.
> However we added the additional restriction that packages in tainted 
> must also be open source, to satisfy those that don't want to install 
> non-free packages.
> 
> If we want to continue this additional restriction, we would have to 
> create another set of repos for packages that are both constrained 
> (tainted) and non-free, in order to carry such packages.

The problem of including nonfree spftware in tainted, is that it no longer is a Free software repo in countries that don't accept software patents.

Nonfree software belongs in a nonfree tree. If we need to create a new repo for them, so be it. That is the right thing to do.
No one said that the right thing to do would be easy. :-)=

> However there are very few packages that meet this restriction.  Also 
> the tainted repos contain relatively few packages, compared with core 
> and nonfree.

What has that got to do with anything?
Either a package is Free and open source software,  or it is not. wether it belongs in the majority or a tiny minority is not the issue.
The issue at stake is our Freedom.

I happens to live in a country where the packages in tainted is Free software in every sense of the word. And I don't believe that I'm the only one that is.
Tainted is a convenience for those that live in a country that have software patents, not the otherway around. Don't clutter the water for those of us where tainted still is a Free software repo.

-- 
Johnny A. Solbu
PGP key ID: 0xFA687324
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