[Mageia-sysadm] Packages SVN

Michael Scherer misc at zarb.org
Wed Nov 3 20:45:49 CET 2010


Le mercredi 03 novembre 2010 à 18:16 +0100, Olivier Blin a écrit :
> Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> writes:
> 
> >> > If we treat this content like we treat the tarballs, then we could
> >> > workaround the problem, no ?
> >> 
> >> How so?
> >
> > Well, in fact, it depend on what we do not want to include.
> >
> > For data ( icones, theme, images ), we can simply put them outside of
> > the svn, like we plan to do for tarballs. 
> 
> The plan is to put tarballs in an additional SVN, right?
> We still have to deal with that.

I tought the plan was to place the tarball outside of a VCS, ie either
download it on demand, or placed in a cache. So we could simply remove
them from the cache when needed.

Now, maybe I misunderstood the new system, so could you explain what it
will be ?


> >> > So this would also mean we will import only after having cleaned the
> >> > various packages ?
> >> >
> >> > This mean then that a review must be started ASAP ( in my humble
> >> > opinion ).
> 
> [...]
> 
> >> But we should check with the board if we want to go that far.
> >
> > Sure. But what is exactly the question :) ?
> 
> Do we filter potentially trademarked/copyrighted content in the src
> packages before initial import?
> Or do we import the whole Mandriva SVN as is to bootstrap?
> 
> IHMO, we shouldn't take the risk of hosting Mandriva material, even if
> this will slow down the process.

We would not be more at fault than plf.zarb.org or any mirrors on that
regard ( especially mirrors ). And they could hardly say "using our GPL
software is a violation of our trademark" without being inconsistent on
that matter, and they didn't protect their mark . 

Hence my request for a specialized lawyer for the non visible cases, and
see what would be considered as a fair use based on existing judgement.
 
While I agree that we should of course not use the name Mandriva in a
very visible way ( since this is not a method ), having it in the svn
for a non released software is likely less a problem. 

For example, based on the only similar case of people who have been
really sued and lost I can think of ( ie mandrake ), there is still case
where Mandrake word is displayed :
- in bugzilla ( older bugs )
- in the website html code ( <meta> )
- in the mail archive, almost everywhere for old archives
( http://lists.mandriva.com/cooker/2003-01/ )
- the FAQ I gave previously ( question 10 ) 
- in the changelog of mandriva-theme-Free-1.4.7-2mdv2010.1
- in the provides and obsoletes of this package
- in the readonly CVS 
- in the filename /etc/rc.d/init.d/mandrake_firstime

and it would also likely be in svn if svn existed at that time, and
would not have been crashed. ( since it is in CVS )

[misc at sisay ~] $ urpmf -i mandrake 2>&1 | wc -l
1652

They have likely contacted a lawyer ( at least, I hope so, even if we
cannot be sure ), and based on that decided that this were fair use of
the trademark ( at least, the lawyer of the opposite party did ). 

Or maybe they are just careless or too busy, given the problem in
FAQ :/ 

-- 
Michael Scherer



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