Re: Distributing software written by hostile upstream developers
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:00:53AM +0200, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
>[Steve McIntyre]
>> There has been some discussion in the last couple of years about
>> whether or not Debian should distribute software that was written by
>> developers that we consider to be "hostile".
>
>In my opinion, the current recommendation in the developer references
>is enough for now:
>
> If you find that the upstream developers are or become hostile
> towards Debian or the free software community, you may want to
> re-consider the need to include the software in Debian. Sometimes
> the social cost to the Debian community is not worth the benefits
> the software may bring.
>
>If someone really want to maintain such package, we should not
>prohibit it, but we should make it clear that it is strongly
>recommended to not maintain such package, and that the advantage of
>the software should be weighted against the problems it causes for the
>Debian community. Perhaps we should also suggest that one start
>working on alternatives for packages with hostile upstream, instead of
>spending time on social interactions with upstream. :)
Well, what happens if somebody wants to maintain software where there
is a strong set of opinion that we don't want it? In this case, I'd
like to delegate the power to the ftpmasters to say so and reject from
NEW etc. If we have a clear consensus that that would be OK then fine;
otherwise I'd like to run this through the GR process to make sure the
project as a whole agrees.
It could be controversial, which is why I'm bringing this up now
rather than via an argument after-the-fact...
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
"Since phone messaging became popular, the young generation has lost the
ability to read or write anything that is longer than one hundred and sixty
characters." -- Ignatios Souvatzis
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