Re: Debian images on Microsoft Azure cloud
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 09:04:29PM +0100, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 11/12/2015 04:52 PM, kuLa wrote:
> > On 2015-11-12 15:58:03, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> >> As per the discussions during debconf, to be called "official", the
> >> images have to be built:
> >> - directly from an unmodified stable
> >> - with reproducibility on any Debian computer (ie: no need for any
> >> external infrastructure access)
> >
> > I don't think we reached any consensus in relation to the last point but I'm
> > not going to argue about it right now.
>
> There's IMO no consensus to have, unless we change the root of Debian
> (ie: the DFSG, and the fact that we do free software, and can build it
> in Debian). The need for an external infrastructure would make the
> images non-free. SaaS on a proprietary platform is as non-free as one
> can get. I don't anyone would say otherwise, would you?
Personally, I disagree with the statement that "the need for external
infrastructure would make the images non-free".
If a cloud platform does not make it possible to *import* images from an
external source, then that requires that the image be built on their
infrastructure, even if it would otherwise be possible to build the same
image outside of their infrastructure. I wouldn't call that non-free, in
very much the same way that building the image on a machine which
requires non-free firmware to boot (such as a BIOS) would result in a
non-free image.
I believe a more sensible requirement would be that "it is theoretically
possible to build a filesystem image on a cloud provider's
infrastructure that is bit-for-bit the exact same thing as one built
outside that infrastructure".
> > What I'd like to point out is that I don't think that right now it's possible
> > to build images for all cloud providers outside their infrastructure.
>
> In such a case, then the said providers shouldn't be granted the rights
> to have images called "official Debian". Maybe "backed by Debian", but
> certainly not "official", as I don't think anyone within the project
> would approve non-free software to be called "official Debian".
Sure.
--
It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer
-- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26
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