Re: proposed new pseudo-package 'debian-mentors' for handling sponsoring requests
Michael Gilbert <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> For the main archive, the NEW check I think is best thought of as a
>> spot check to ensure maintainers are doing their jobs. The real
>> responsibility of not uploading non-redistributable material lies with
>> the Debian project members with upload rights. ftpmaster is just
>> checking for mistakes (at the point at which most mistakes are made).
>> The difference for mentors is that the uploaders are not (yet) Debian
>> project members and are not guaranteed to be trained in our licensing
>> policies, and have not agreed to follow our rules.
> So, I think these concerns can be abated by thinking of mentors more of
> an alternative NEW queue for newcomers; rather than as an alternative
> package pool, which it's not (binary packages are not served, and files
> hosted are not widely distributed since most users wouldn't know what to
> do with a source package even if they got one).
The problem with thinking of mentors as a NEW queue is that one of the key
properties of the NEW queue is that Debian does not distribute the files
in that queue. In other words, they are not retrievable by people other
than those doing NEW processing until they've been approved.
As long as files are kept within the project, Debian is unlikely to get in
much trouble (although historically we've had to be careful about US
export regulations as well), even if the software is non-redistributable.
But once Debian is serving out copies of the files to the general public,
via whatever means, the project (insofar as the project has a legal
existence, which is admittedly weird) is responsible for that
distribution, could be sued, etc.
So, it would work to think of mentors as a NEW queue provided that things
uploaded to it are only available to Debian project members. If they're
available to the general public, it's something else.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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