new port: the never ending story

[A Mennucc1 <debian@Tonelli.sns.it>]

hi


  --- still on the name

<flame mode>
let's start by a few quotations:

"an arch is an arch is an arch is an arch"

"an arch by any other name would work the same"

"shut up and show them the arch"

it: "l' arch e' l'apostrofo rosa fra le parole 'package' e '.deb'"
en: "the arch is the pink apostrophe between 'package' and '.deb'"

what I mean is: is the name of the arch so so so so relevant?
when we are sure that it makes reasonable sense, and that 
it has no legal problems, doesnt this suffice?
</flame mode>

so lets see at it again. here is a list of names for the new arch;
'arch64' means 'the name of the Debian port using cygwin inside MSWindows
 on intel 64 bit architectures' (if we would ever come to that, since
 I do now doubt that even this port i386-cygwin will ever be born; 
 moreover I am told that Microsoft is making a mess on ia64 machines,
 and even 'printf' will not work as GNU programs expect!)
then you see my _personal_ ideas on those

note that 'Microsoft Windows', 'cygwin', 'win32' 
are trademarks; if we build up a product that has a name
that is/contains a trademark, we are definitively into trouble;
did you hear the 'killustrator' mess, with adobe suing for 
 2500eur? see http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/02/1648243.shtml
Shipping a product that has , in its description or documentation or
dependencies, a trademark, is different ; I think this is fair (when the
trademark is honored), since it is routinely done.

arch=   win
arch64= win-ia64
pro: it is a mixture of 'Microsoft Windows', 'cygwin', 'win32' 
     but it is neither of the 3, and this is good, since they are 
     trademarks. The arch64 name is reasonable. The layuser would
     easily associate this port to its end usage.
con: some people dislike it badly

arch=    w32
arch64=  w64
pro: it has been proposed by many parts (and actually it was my 
  second-nearly-first choice); no trademark problems
con: I think it is not so appealing to the layuser; and 
  I dont like the arch64 <-> arch relationship
 
arch=   cygwin
arch64= cygwin-ia64
pro: indeed this port uses 'cywin'
con: 'cygwin' mainly substitutes the libc; but  no Debian port
  is named 'glibc' ; trademark problem? (we need to ask redhat
  permission for this) 

arch=  win32
con: I think it is out of question: we risk problems on the trademark;
 I even heard that Cygnus changed the name of its library from
 'cygwin32' to 'cygwin' for the same reason

arch=??? any other proposal?

my end word on this is: I personally do not want to call a
general election on this issue; but if someone whinks that we
need to vote on this issue, please speak up (and organize it)

following, I will use 'Debian GNU/win'; please dont flame me
(I am overburned)

  --- and on GPL

someone stated that the whole port should go in contrib,
since it depends on a non free OS; I do not agree, since I can
use a cygwin port of a package inside 'wine' 
(I have actually done this),
and I could use it inside any other free replacement of the MS OS:
it is up to the end user to install 'Debian GNU/win' where they like

someone said that we cant have a GNU system on Windows; again I
do not agree, since there are GNU tools in Solaris, SUNOS, etc etc.

 
 
bye

a.

-- 
A Mennucc
 "È un mondo difficile. Che vita intensa!" (Renato Carotone)