Fwd: Bug#931965: New Debian package squashfs-tools-ng_0.4.2
Sort this out please.
Background. squashfs-tools-nt had/has a statement I consider
defamatory to me as maintainer of Squashfs-tools. He also made
defamatory statements on your mailing list.
See:
https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg1690835.html
I asked if the Debian package repeated this libel, and it apparently
does. See below.
Your maintainer than repeats the assertion that I am a dormant maintainer.
This I consider extremely inappropriate and an additional libel and provocation.
I am not sending these emails out of choice. In over 30+ years of
open source development this is the first time I have had to do so.
But on-line false statements are dangerous - if they are not dealt
with, they have a tendency to become widely believed as fact.
I am still the maintainer of Squashfs (both in the kernel and of the
tools), and I have never believed or indicated otherwise.
I have been active over the last couple of years, submitting kernel
patches and bug fixes to the squashfs-tools, and dealing with issues
and pull requests and emails. I will offer a couple of URLs below,
but, I do not believe I need to prove myself here, quite the opposite.
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=a3f94cb99a854fa381fe7fadd97c4f61633717a5
GitHub repository https://github.com/plougher/squashfs-tools
I will freely admit I have not been as active as I used to be - mainly
concentrating on essential security fixes, bug fixes and
correspondence. But there is a big difference between this and being
"shamed" publicly as an inactive and dormant maintainer. It is this
which I object to most strongly, and I consider defamatory.
This reduction in involvement has not been out of choice, but as a
consequence of taking on demanding roles in my day job. I am
currently the Kernel Maintainer for Redhat Enterprise Linux 8 (and
have been for RHEL5 and RHEL6), this is a job where spare time is more
a concept than a reality. So I have worked extremely hard keeping my
level of involvement in Squashfs.
I do not have any more to say, except I take damage to my reputation
seriously. I hope this situation can be resolved amicably.
Dr Phillip Lougher
Squashfs Author and Maintainer
--------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Phillip Lougher <phillip.lougher@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: Bug#931965: New Debian package squashfs-tools-ng_0.4.2
To: László Böszörményi (GCS) <gcs@debian.org>
On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 11:30 AM László Böszörményi (GCS)
<gcs@debian.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Phillip,
>
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 5:18 AM Phillip Lougher
> <phillip.lougher@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I notice you have produced a new package squashfs-tools-ng_0.4.2.
> I have packaged it and uploaded for review of our FTP Master team.
> They are going to check if all files have a license that's acceptable
> as free software according to our guidelines.
>
> > I have not been able to find any download of that package available.
> No one can download the package until the mentioned check is over.
>
> > Can you confirm that this package does not repeat the libel contained
> > in the upstream package?
> David removed that text from his Git tree. As this is the latest
> release and before that removal, it's still contains the sentences
> that you thought to be inactive and the squashfs-tools development
> seemed to be stalled.
>
> > Additionally this page
> >
> > https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/squashfs-tools-ng_0.4.2-1.html
> >
> > In the "Description" contains two paragraphs lifted from my
> > Squashfs-tools repository without attribution which I consider a
> > copyright violation.
> >
> > "Squashfs is a highly compressed read-only filesystem for Linux. It uses zlib
> > compression to compress both files, inodes and directories. Inodes in the
> > system are very small and all blocks are packed to minimise data overhead.
> > Block sizes greater than 4K are supported up to a maximum of 64K.
> > .
> > Squashfs is intended for general read-only filesystem use, for archival use
> > (i.e. in cases where a .tar.gz file may be used), and in constrained block
> > device/memory systems (e.g. embedded systems) where low overhead is needed."
> If you ask about if I credited you for this paragraph in
> debian/copyright then forgive me but not yet. I can ask the FTP
> Masters to reject the current package and I'm going to re-upload with
> that added.
> @David may even write a new description for his squashfs-tools-ng project.
>
> > Dr Phillip Lougher
> > Squashfs author and maintainer
> With all the respect, I don't know you are such upset and against
> this new tool. If I look around, it seemed you are a dormant
> developer.
> You didn't update your homepage[1], even today it still states
> "Squashfs 4.2 released (28th February 2011)" and "Squashfs 4.2 This is
> the latest release, for users of 2.6.29 and later kernels". No mention
> of the real latest release, 4.3 [2].
> I don't see any announcement either where you present the new
> development on GitHub. Quickly checking the commit logs, it reveals
> that you only fixed security vulnerabilities 13 days ago[3] when these
> were publicly reported four years ago (on July 20th, 2015)[4].
> Then David announced _twice_ squashfs-tools-ng on _your_ mailing
> list[5][6] without any comment from you. Now all of a sudden you are
> against him because he (me and lot of people included) thought you are
> inactive[7].
That is also offensive and I also consider it a libel.
Do not dig your hold any deeper, or else I will take legal advice with
an intention to sue.
Phillip
> Just for the record, did you contact Gentoo as well? They already
> distribute squashfs-tools-ng[8] with the text you label as
> "defamatory".
>
> @FTP Masters: please reject the package if it's really a copyright
> infringement using a text description from an other package without
> crediting that in our copyright file.
>
> Kind regards,
> Laszlo/GCS
> [1] http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/
> [2] https://sourceforge.net/projects/squashfs/files/squashfs/squashfs4.3/
> [3] https://github.com/plougher/squashfs-tools/commit/f95864afe8833fe3ad782d714b41378e860977b1
> [4] https://lwn.net/Vulnerabilities/651775/
> [5] https://sourceforge.net/p/squashfs/mailman/message/36689846/
> [6] https://sourceforge.net/p/squashfs/mailman/message/36709722/
> [7] https://github.com/AgentD/squashfs-tools-ng/issues/10
> [8] https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=5ae739228d96e5857b88c0658d22456da1724ea0
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