On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 07:46:36PM +0000, Steven Fuerst wrote: > On Friday 15 Nov 2002 6:41 pm, John Goerzen wrote: > > On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 05:22:34PM +0000, Steven Fuerst wrote: > > > > I think you stand a good chance of that happening even if my proposed > > > > resolution passes. > > > > > > How can you be so sure? You don't seem to have announced an alternative > > > server system yet. > > > > If it doesn't happen, it says something about how little people value the > > software there, doesn't it? > > I think it says more about the difficulty required to set up such a system. You may want to have a look at gluck.debian.org:~branden/public_html/sid sometime and see how difficult you think it is. > Well - yes, you could have a seperate server for every single package in > debian... > > I count 1685 packages installed on my machine - and that would require a fair > number of lines in /etc/apt/sources.list > > Surely you have to realise the convenience of having a relatively small number > of lines in that file. This is one of the things that makes debian such a > pleasure to actually use. # apt-get install aptconf > The problem is your definition of what is in the distribution isn't quite the > same as what users (like me) actually think it means. If you want, all you > really need to do is remove your 'non-free' line from sources.list, and the > packages you don't want to know about will disappear. Other users may just > like the convenience of editing one config file to get the ability to > download all of this useful software in a simple way. So our main priority is the convenience of our users. > > Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Harrison, James E. Wilson, Robert A. Koeneke > > > > This software may be copied and distributed for educational, > > research, and not for profit purposes provided that this > > copyright and statement are included in all such copies. > > Other copyrights may also apply. > > this later license is pretty much overruled by Ben and James joining into the > angband opensource initiative. (Ben Harrison did a large rewrite of the code > several years ago.) The only real problem is with the truely ancient code > and copywrited text in the game - which comes from Robert A. Koeneke and > falls under the Moria license above. ;-) I am not sure that the Debian mirror network completely qualifies under the "educational, research" [sic] requirement above. There are certainly some commercial organizations on the mirror network. The above copyright and license cannot be "overruled" except by the unanimous consent of all authors of the code so licensed. It doesn't sound like that is the case. (It's just "pretty much" the case.) > > It seems to me that even that may be a problem -- there is no grant to copy > > and distribute for anything other than: > > > > 1. educational > > 2. research > > 3. not for profit > > > > If you are a company hosting a Debian mirror, how exactly do you fall under > > that? What if your mirror features banners? (Clearly a "for-profit" > > activity) > > Which is why it is in non-free... This issue should probably be brought to the attention of the Debian mirror admins -- some sites may inadvertently be in breach of the license. > Can you imagine the difficulty of trying to change a license on something that > is twenty years old? Well, it's been done before... ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change -- G. Branden Robinson | A committee is a life form with six Debian GNU/Linux | or more legs and no brain. branden@debian.org | -- Robert Heinlein http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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