On Fri, 20 Sep 2013, Eric Maeker wrote:
Le 20 sept. 2013 à 12:27, Faheem Mitha a écrit :On Fri, 20 Sep 2013, Eric Maeker wrote:Le 19 sept. 2013 à 23:44, Faheem Mitha a écrit :Hi,
I have a situation where I have some software I want to package for Debian. This software needs to use some biological data, but I was told by the website I got this data from that I could not redistribute it.
So, I suppose anyone using the software needs to download it. I'll provide a script to download the data, but if I want to build a Debian package containing that data, how should I do it?
You should just add a menu in the application or a command-line script to let user download the data. I had the same problem with FreeMedForms/FreeDiams and drugs database. Now, user get the application with a minimal free set of data, and a "datapack" manager that let him download drugs databases (free or not) from other repositories than debian. The application is now in totally compatible with the DFSG and available in the "free" repositories of Debian (and derivates).
Eric, freemedforms.com
Hi Eric,
Thanks for replying. Once the user has downloaded the data, does your package have any provision to package up this data as a Debian package and install it? That is what I'd like to do.
Nop, the data are dowloaded from our servers into a specific place (user-dependent, in his home path) and the application connect the database at this place. The data are not shared between users, so even if users use the same computer, each user needs to download its data pack.
This process is totally debian packaging independent. We did this way because we are strongly convinced that FreeMedForms must be a free and DFSG compatible application. Data can be released with any license. Users just have to accept license terms of the datapack before using them. WE can also think about commercial "datapack" which is not currently our objective.Eric, freemedforms.com
Hi Eric,Ok, thanks for the clarification. I suppose it is not actually necessary to make a Debian package from the downloaded data, but if it was, then other users could easily use it without downloading it themselves.
Regards, Faheem