Re: Sponsorship requirements and copyright files
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 02:40:18PM +0000, Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 03:14:36PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > Le vendredi 20 mars 2009 à 14:02 +0000, Noah Slater a écrit :
> > > If we were suggesting some totally arbitrary and time consuming task, then I
> > > could understand your concerns. However, you should be checking each file as a
> > > part of your packaging, all that is being requested is that you document this
> > > for the FTP masters and our users.
> > >
> > > The focus here should be on producing quality software, with a rigorous and open
> > > process, so that people can be confident that what we're shipping is totally
> > > free software. Cutting corners to save a bit of time, simply because a package
> > > is large, does not seem to fit well with this goal. Hence my suggestion that if
> > > a package you are maintaining seems like too much work, perhaps it would make
> > > sense to collaboratively maintain it.
> >
> > What is your problem? Do you want to see whether Mike can become violent
> > if you press him hard enough, or is it another kind of experiment?
>
> Why do you find it necessary to be so aggressive with me?
>
> I fail to see which part of my argument you think is inflammatory or ridiculous:
>
> * It is already your responsibility as a Debian package maintainer to
> thoroughly check each and every file for copyright and licensing issues.
>
> * If you maintain a large package, this must already be a burden for you.
>
> * Documenting this process in a text file does not seem like much extra work.
>
> * Complaining that you would have to check every single file implies that you
> don't already check every single file, which you should be doing.
If all the above were true, no package of xulrunner, iceweasel, openoffice,
kde and others would have *EVER* entered the archive, since there has
*NEVER* been such work done on these packages, and until this funky new
copyright showed up, that did bother *NOONE*, including the ftpmasters.
> * Therefor, complaining that this is hard work and collaborators are hard to
> come by, seems like a completely orthogonal issue to the copyright proposal.
If you want those copyright files to be thourough, I invite you to download
one of the packages above's source, and start checking those tens of
thousands of files. See you in three months to see where you are at it,
and throw you some more new upstream releases.
> This doesn't mean that I am doubting how much work the bigger packages are, or
> that it isn't hard finding collaborators. I have a lot of respect for the people
> who offer there time to get this job done. On the other hand, this rationally
> has nothing to do with the copyright proposal, presuming that everyone is
> already following policy.
It has all to do with it, since you are suggesting that the copyright
proposal is sane even for big packages, changes nothing to the current
status quo, which, as I said above is far from being true, and that
$SOMEPEOPLE should do their homework or move to other packages.
Mike
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