Pine update (Re: I have PINE .debs...) (fwd)
On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, George Bonser wrote:
> On 25 Feb 1999, Peter Makholm wrote:
>
> > But then it may conflict with the DSFG....
>
> Which is why it would go in non-free with all the rest of the stuff that
> conflicts with the DFSG.
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* Who gets to make the final decision on what goes where? *
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Paul, I was hoping that you had packaged up the 4.10 source + diffs,
from the experimental section of the ftp tree.
The most recent Debianized Pine I am aware of is at:
ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/project/experimental/pine_4.10.diff.gz
ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/project/experimental/pine_4.10.dsc
ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/project/experimental/pine_4.10.orig.tar.gz
(or your favorite mirror)
You could try to present them to Pine, although I doubt that they would
look at the diffs until some arrangement has been made. Pine claims that
they have looked at and approved diffs for Debianized executables on
more than one occassion, but since "nothing came of it", they don't want
to waste time doing it again.
Have you checked out the copyright that comes with the 4.10 source
package. In addition to the legal.txt file you have already found at
the UW Pine site, there is a file named CPYRIGHT within the source
archive (or so I hear).
IMO,
Legal.txt treats modifications and redistribution as separate issues,
and is clear about how each should be handled; the copyright statement
then comes along and mixes up the two different concerns. :(
At the present time the real issue is not Pine's placement in the
distribution, rather it is their arbitrary distinction between diffs
and the binaries produced by applying them. i.e., If the diff is OK,
why can't the resulting binary be distributed. Furthermore, if it
becomes OK to distribute Debianized binaries, the requirement to get
approval for every binary would result in an unnaceptable workload for
both Pine and the Debian maintainer of Pine[1]. Pine is aware of these
problems.
I believe that the ball is in the UW court, either they will let Pine
give Debian some slack with respect to redistribution, or they will see
it as too much of a risk to their reputation to not check every version
of a program connected to them - it may just depend on Debian's
reputation for putting out a quality product.
Anyways, that pretty much brings y'all up to speed with the current Pine
situation. I am confident that this will be resolved because I know
that Pine wants to be distributed by Debian, and I know that Pine is
taking steps to fit into Debian's `run with privileges'(the lockfile
stuff) way of doing things (that will reduce the size of the diffs file,
which can only be a good thing), and I know that the more software
available as .debs the better off Debian will be.
Take care,
Bruce
[1] There would be a binary for every release made by each party, both
Pine and Debian generated bug fixes, possible fixes to maintain
compatibility with all the other mail software Debian distributes, and
updates to previous releases; this wouldn't be a problem if Debian only
released every couple of years and didn't fix bugs, but since the
schedule is for two releases in a one year period and patches are
expected to be applied as they appear... even if Pine could deal with
it and a Debian maintainer was found who would agree to the extra work,
would the next one also agree.
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