Re: MaintainerDatabase Copyright

[Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de>]

Hi folks!

This discussion seems to have stopped but I don't think we have a
consensus yet. I think we should forget about all the "flaming" in the
previous mails and get back to the facts.

I still think the Maintainer DB is important. Special thanks to Manoj for
working on this!

First, we have to define which data will be distributed. I agree with
Christian Lynbech that we don't have to distribute the whole data. For
example, we should probably not distribute the private email addresses
of all people, since some want to keep it of the web so that spammers
can't find them.

However, it would be nice to have an up-to-date xearth map with the
maintainer's name on it--this data should be freely distributable even for
commercial use.

So what about this: The complete database is stored in a file on
master.debian.org together with a license, which does not allow
distribution. Every maintainer could log into master and read it, but
downloading would not be allowed.

Then, we define which "subset" of the maintainer's db should be freely
distributable. I think it's important that everyone can check the
integrity of the DB. Thus, we either have to use a license which does not
allow modifications or, even better, we use PGP to sign the DB. 

Any comments are welcome.


Thanks,

Chris

--                  Christian Schwarz
                   schwarz@monet.m.isar.de, schwarz@schwarz-online.com
                  schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
                       
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