Re: Sun Java available from non-free
Am Sonntag, den 21.05.2006, 15:58 -0500 schrieb Raphael Hertzog:
> No, if we should discuss before taking any action we wouldn't get
> anything done.
Oh, come on. Nobody expects you to ask before updating a simple package.
> If you really want to contest the decision, you have the
> GR.
ROFL, yes, that will give us a much higher productivity...; taking
decisions behind closed doors and then let people decide via a GR.
> Someone from Sun contacts you to examinate a new license for Java and ask
> you advice and all, and ask you to keep that info private. What do you
> respond to him ? "No sorry, we really don't care, go away"?
Discuss it with them; let them publish the license; announce your wish
to include it into Debian. If we assume that a discussion takes about
two weeks, that would have been the delay between the inclusion.
> There was no other choice, that's all.
Sorry, that's not true, I've pointed out another choice above.
> And we would have lost an opportunity to do some PR stuff and show
> everyone that we're an important player in the Linux world.
How about is taking some time to include this stuff a lost opportunity?
Do you believe the announcement has a greater impact if it comes close
to Sun's announcement? Sorry, while this was really good for Sun, the
effect for Debian is probably negletable.
By the way, did you actually check what kind of PR this generated?
Reading the german news sites (and Slashdot) [1,2], I fear that it
wasn't made clear that the packages go into non-free; I think people
will expect to find them in main.
Perhaps next time a real press release from Debian would be in order,
instead of letting Sun take the lead.
> The choice has already been made. Both sides have positive sides and
> negative ones. The choice has been made, no point in discussing it over
> again and again.
Raphael, if you keep pissing people of with this "we have decided, now
get back to working" attitude, you might find that your good PR might
backfire. Even a failed GR about this issue will generate more bad press
than the announcement created good one.
> I have to agree this sucks but if you have the schedule in mind it's easy
> to understand:
I point to my earlier posting about communication: I can't have a
schedule in mind if I didn't know there existed one in the first place.
> No, it would simply show that Sun is not committed to what they told us.
> We have been reasonable and accepted to work with them. If they change
> their mind, then it's Sun which is not reasonable.
If Debian publishes a press release saying "we remove this because of
Sun's actions", this will generate bad press for both Debian and Sun.
Even if it's worse for Sun, it's still something we should try to avoid.
[1] http://www.golem.de/0605/45369.html
[2] http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/19/2044202
Thomas
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