Re: gs gnu & aladdin: two packages?
>
> Joost Witteveen <joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl> writes:
>
> > I would like to get a few more views about my gs gnu/aladdin
> > problem: At the moment, I just have gs-3.53 (aladdin) and gs-2.62
> > (GNU), so basically ONE pacakge, with two versions.
>
> They are different packages and are named differently by the author:
> Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript.
But, from the README: [..] GNU Ghostscript versions are released
approximately a year after the corresponding Aladdin Ghostscript version.
So, the difference isn't too big. (GNU will be releasing gs-3.0 shortly,
I believe)
>
> > This is because I reasoned like this: If anyone can get hold of the
> > gs-3.53 version (ftp or a from CD distributer with guts)
>
> Please be clear, by "guts" you mean letting Alladin Ghostscript become
> the least free of licenses considered free by Debian. Doing this
> would have a negative effect.
Not at all -- by "guts" I mean that the distributer is confident enough
that all debian maintainers have done a good job at reading the copyright
information, and no non-free (i.e. less free than Aladdin) package is
included. And, of course, the distributer is risking to have to pay
20--30 dollarcents per cd -- this is the amount Peter L. Deutsch is asking
for commercial CD's with Aladdin gs and commercial software on them.
As the gs-3.53 will be in the non-free section, there's no question
about gs being "the least free of licences considered free by Debian".
I also maintain gs-2.62 (GNU) for the debian core system.
> Distributors of Debian would be restricted by the "free" Alladin
> license. If they wished to distribute Motif, a commercial X server,
> Netscape Gold, or any piece of commercial software with Debian, they
> could not.
Please get me right: the gs-3.53 package will (or should) be in the
non-free section. And anyway, I don't follow your Motif comparison
at all: for Motif they have to pay anyway, so what difference
does it make if they then also have to pay a couple of dollarcents
for gs-3.53?
>
> Even the GPL, sometimes called as the "General Public Virus", doesn't
> go to this extent in making restrictions.
>
> > there's no reason for him to want to install the GNU version. The
> > restrictions of aladdin are agaist distributing, not using.
>
> No practical reasons, but perhaps philosophic ones.
Surely, if you don't like non-GPL-ed stuff, then you shouldn't include
anything from the non-free section (where gs-3.53 resides) -- this way,
you'll always get the GNU version. No matter wheter I call the
3.53 version different from the GNU version, or not.
> Dan
>
> --
> Daniel Quinlan Member of the League for Programming Freedom
> quinlan@best.com
--
joost witteveen
joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl
joostje@debian.org
--
Use Debian Linux!
Reply to: