Re: [Help] Please compile clustalw on architectures ia64, mips, mipsel, s390 and m68k

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 02:38:49PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Andreas Tille wrote:
> 
> >When I maintained this package I tried and I guess my successors tried
> >as well.  Another solution was suggested nearly 5 years ago
> >
> >   http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/11/msg01472.html
> >
> >and if I remember also at other occurences but the search interface
> 
> Just to reply to my own mail:  I blamed the search interface to
> fast:
> 
>     http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/11/msg00270.html
> 
> Just read the mails of these both threads and learn why we have
> not yet autobuilders for non-free.  IMHO the main issue is that
> "nobody really _did_ it".

There are two issues at hand that explain why there is no non-free
autobuilder:

* Most people who could set up one (because they have the hardware and
  the skillz) do not want to, either because they feel that maintaining
  buildd machines for main takes up more than enough of their time, or
  because they oppose to working on non-free as a principle.
* Packages in main are required to be DFSG-free; therefore, it cannot be
  illegal to install or build this package if you live in Europe, are
  male, do not speak English, or any other silly requirement. The only
  requirement for a package to appear in Debian is that Debian must be
  allowed to *distribute* it. A requirement that we are allowed to build
  or even install it, is not part of the requirement of non-free. While
  the examples I gave above are obviously silly and over the top, there
  are actual examples of packages in non-free that have license
  requirements which would make autobuilding them (or their reverse
  dependencies) cumbersome, at the very least (though I can't recall
  which they were). Therefore, anyone interested in building non-free
  would need to maintain a list of packages that do not have such
  problematic restrictions. TTBOMK, this has not happened.

-- 
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
  -- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22