Re: sharefont package license sucks, even for non-free
Christoph Lameter wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
>
> > But then the Debian maintainer wants a cut too!
> >
> > : If you actually pay money for one or more of the fonts in this
> > : package then I expect to be cut in. For the work of putting
> > : together this package I expect $10 or 10% of the fee paid to the
> > : authors of the fonts whichever is higher.
> >
> > Perhaps it's a clever idea to discourage the use of non-free,
> > but I think it looks very bad to have a package on Debian servers
> > that could profit its maintainer simply for packaging it. It's a
> > contradiction in philosophy, especially coming from someone with
> > a high profile like Christoph Lameter.
>
> Hehehe. It took such a long time for someone to notice.... I really need
> to update the address. No checks yet ;-)
>
> If I have to suffer through packaging shareware and the shareware authors
> get $$$ from it then I naturally want to be cut in. If its free then I
> know what my work will be used in such a way as to be free too and then
> its ok also to be beer-free.
I guess not many developers care, but here's what I think:
- You `may naturally want to be cut in', but you are using
Debian resources to do it. I think the Debian part of
distributing shareware should be free, including the packaging
of it by the Debian maintainer.
- If you don't like to package shareware, you don't have to.
I'd even be happier you you hadn't encouraged the use of
shareware in the first place by packaging it.
Some developers may find it funny. I simply don't like the image
it gives Debian if new users read that copyright file.
Please consider removing your cut, or rephrasing such that your
point is made more clearly (if that was your intention), or
even removing the package altogether.
(As a side note, I'm not for the removal of the non-free section,
but I would be for the removal of all shareware packages from
non-free. I don't see why Debian should be working for these
people, doing their distribution work for them.)
--
Peter Galbraith, research scientist <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 1000, Mont-Joli Qc, G5H 3Z4 Canada. 418-775-0852 FAX: 775-0546
6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/
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