Re: sharefont package license sucks, even for non-free
On Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 01:29:04PM -0500, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
>
> Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
>
> > It's a bit more complicated. o-o is upstream maintainer here, too. Usually,
> > we *encourage* upstream maintainers to package and maintain their software
> > for Debian. Now, with non-free, a paradox situation arises: An author of
> > shareware could join Debian and package it for Debian, and Debian would help
> > distributing his for-profit ware all over the world.
> >
> > The only logical conclusion is to (<agenda>drop non-free or</agenda>)
> > disallow shareware in non-free.
>
> Or, as I said, make it against Debian policy for developers to be
> in such fragrant conflict of interest.
That's not possible to pursue consequently. What if I'd package sharefont,
and Christoph would package my shareware. What if we'd work for the same
company?
I considered the rule: "No-one must package his own commerical software for
non-free", but it's too weak, as the hypothetical exploit above shows.
We would only encourage people to find ways around this rule, and "do it in
the dark". We have to face it: The current definition of non-free simply
allows for such things to happen. And either we accept it, or redefine what
non-free means (<agenda>or drop it :)</agenda).
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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