Re: "Official CD" screwups (Was: Why only one non-free section?)
People are approaching the Official CD the wrong way. The title
'Official Debian CD' should be usable by anyone who creates
CDs that meet criteria that we define. This will give the CD
vendors enough flexibility to add what they want while guaranteeing
that the CDs meet our high standards.
It would be even better if we created a method of testing the
CDs. Best would be something that the vendors could run themselves.
Outline of Definition of an Official Debian CD Set
--------------------------------------------------
To use the 'Official Debian X.X CD' title a CD set must meet the
following criteria:
- X.X must agree with the name of the distribution as Debian
has defined them. For example, 2.0 may only be used with
distribution 'hamm' as released by Debian on July 24, 1998.
The list is added to each time we make an official release.
- Bootability. An appropriate definition of bootability must
be decided upon.
- Organization. The directory structure of each disk must follow
the directory structure Debian has set up. This will, at a
minimum, guarantee the existance of the dists/stable directory
so all installation scripts will know where to find the archive.
There should be some freedom allowed in splitting the distribution
over multiple CDs, but not so much that they create something
that is difficult to use. This will require some thought.
- What packages to include. At a minimum, the set of packages in
dists/stable/main/<port> should be included, where <port> is the
architecture(s) the CD set is intended for.
- Source. Allow vendors to sell source CDs seperately, as long as
they do sell them. This is required by the GPL.
- Installation Instructions. We should make it easy for CD vendors
to include a paper copy of the installation instructions.
Should inclusion of a hardcopy of these with the CD set be mandatory?
- Inclusion of non-DFSG software. It is the vendors responsibility to
make sure they have a valid license to distribute any software that
is not free (using the definition given by the DFSG).
This is the only sticky point as by allowing the use of the term
'Official Debian' we are assuming some liability in case a vendor is
sued.
- Anything else we come up with.
Of course, the CD image generation scripts we distribute will guarantee
compliance with the standard. If the scripts allow enough flexibility in
the organization of the CDs and easily allow the inclusion of other
software, most vendors would use them.
If this is the route that we decide to use, I would be willing to write
a more formal definition as we make the definition more concrete.
Jay Treacy
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