Hi Brian,
Quite correct; no non-free software is included in the base image. The script to build – ec2debian-build-ami – is Apache License.
My feelings is that if someone wants additional stuff installed, this can be achieved easily by a UserData script of:
#!/bin/sh
wget $BINARY_URL && …
Just as you could also “apt-get update && apt-get install –y PACKAGE1… && ….”
So there’s no requirement that I can see to include additional non DFSG in a Debian base.
Just FYI on images, while I have an updated set from the 2012-11-08 images already generated, I’m looking at the http.debian.net mirror selection and may again
regenerate. I have a CloudFormation template ready to go, and will share this when I feel the image generation is stable (pending this last change). Hopefully this will be done in the next 48 hours.
Can you point me at the source for cfn-helper? I’d be happy to track down the right people and see what they say. Its way beyond my means to activate these
changes, but I can pass along requests and explain what DFSG is to people.
James
(jeb@debian.org)
James Bromberger | Solution Architect – Western Australia| Amazon Web Services
From: Brian Gupta [mailto:brian.gupta@brandorr.com]
Sent: Monday, 12 November 2012 4:53 PM
To: Stefano Zacchiroli
Cc: debian-cloud@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Reading archives..
On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 09, 2012 at 08:39:06AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> > 4) CLI tools - not initially here. There's lots to discuss with
> > regards to packages of it; who should maintain it, what is the
> > copyright, and where should the repo be. I would love to, but I
> > don't have answers for those questions right now.
>
> They are non-free, so I think that we should not have them by default.
Strong ACK.
I feel pretty strongly about the fact that, to advertise official Debian
images of *any* public cloud out there 1/ they shall only contain
DFSG-free software by default, and 2/ we should be able to create them
using only DFSG-free software.
AFAIU from discussions thus far, that is indeed the case for the AWS
images. Is that correct?
OTOH I'm not sure that is the case for the Azure images, as of yet?
Pierre?
James/Stefano,
So it looks like the licensing on the cfn-helper scripts is the Amazon Software License which looks like it is not DFSG compliant (http://aws.amazon.com/asl/), is there any chance you could ask Amazon
to see if they would consider releasing them under a DFSG-compliant license, or modifying their license to be compliant? (Or if you are too busy, I could ask some folks I know at Amazon, but I'm guessing you guys would have better luck.)
I believe the biggest issue is the "Use limitation":
"3.3 Use Limitation. The Work and any derivative works thereof only may be used or intended for use with the web services, computing platforms or applications provided by Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, including Amazon Web Services
LLC."
If we can resolve the licensing issue, I would be willing to do the work to create and maintain a package.
Thanks,
Brian
P.S. - This is one of the few Amazon packages that is actually useful at boot time, so even though I would love to get all the Amazon software installable via Debian packages, I think this package is likely the highest priority for getting
relicensed. It's also one of the few packages that they have released the source for, so it just requires a licensing change. (Rather than convincing them to release the source as well.)
Cheers.
--
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Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o .
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