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Re: Who should package&host a product?



Steve Greenland wrote:

> On 17-Jan-01, 14:00 (CST), "Wesley W. Terpstra" <terpstra@javien.com> wrote: 
> > 
> > So, you say that people using the product should be the debian maintainers.
> > Well, we here all use them, so that would be a reason for one of us to be
> > the debian maintainer. However, can one become a debian maintainer when
> > one's only intention is to maintain packages which your company develops?
> > That seems kinda shifty-eyed. :-)
> 
> I suppose a few people might think so, but there are lots of maintainers
> who maintain only a few packages for some "selfish" reason, either
> as the original author of the packaged software or as a member of a
> company. So long as you maintain the package reasonably well, I don't
> see the problem. If the package is useful, then nobody should care
> whether or not you're being payed to package it.

I agree.

It's fine with me if someone is paid to maintain a free package
for Debian.  

Where it crosses the line for me is the hypothetical case where a
Debian maintainer uploads a package for non-free that consists of
shareware that he directly profits from licensing [1].  Since
this doesn't appear to be the case for your company (i.e. your
package would be in main), I don't see a conflict at all.

[1] It crosses the line _for_ _me_.  That doesn't mean it doesn't
already happen.

-- 
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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