Re: CD README's
Dwarf wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Will Lowe wrote:
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >
> > I think everything suggested so far makes sense ... the word "official"
> > should be used only on CDs that are copied from our official/gold CDs or
> > the images of them on the website.
>
> I would suggest that trying to control what is meant by the word
> "Official", and restrict it to the use of a particular CD image is a
> mistake. It was a mistake last time, and it is still a mistake.
>
> When I build a CD from a mirror of Debian's archives, I am building the
> official Debian distribution. Our ftp sites are the definitive source for
> Debian. To imply that only CDs constructed from our created images are
> "official" is restrictive with no benefit to the end user.
>
> What does Debian intend to do if someone publishes a CD made from the ftp
> site and calls it "Official". Are you going to argue in a court that the
> ftp site is less official than the CD image files?
>
The Official CDs were originally created for quality control, not content
control so we should allow flexibility in the use of the term.
The policy should allow people to use the term Official Debian if the CDs
are created using our scripts and contain all of main. Use of our scripts
should ensure that they are of high enough quality (if the scripts are good
enough).
The one proviso is that we should also require vendors to sign a contract if
they don't use the official images we create. It would state that they are
completely responsible for the licensing of any software on the disk not in
the main distribution. We need to protect ourselves from the stupidity of
others.
Debian was created to be a distribution that others would build off of. We
could encourage that by allowing greater flexibility while ensuring high
quality.
Jay Treacy
P.S. I know some vendors would really dislike this, but we should also require
those who use the term Official Debian to report the number of Debian CD sales
to us. We have become popular enough that we should start tracking the CD sales
and downloads off the net (not an easy task itself). Even with this information
estimating the number of Debian users will not be easy, but without it it is
impossible.
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