Re: Bug#426581: meshlab - anyone still working on this
On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Ian Jackson
<ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Paolo Cignoni writes ("Re: Bug#426581: meshlab - anyone still working on this"):
>
> > Yes, it phones home regularly.
> >
> > It is well written in the docs
> > http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Licenses
>
> Thanks for the reference.
>
>
> > It seems to me that it is not against the Debian social contract nor
> > against the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).
>
> This kind oof thing is written down anywhere in those documents
> because at the time those documents were written it would have been
> obvious to everyone concerned that it would be considered
> unacceptable.
>
> Not everything that we think is unacceptable is in those documents. I
> don't want to make outrageous comparisons, but just to give a more
> clear example (and I'm not saying this phoning home is as bad) we
> don't have a statement saying that Debian packages shouldn't install a
> backdoor allowing the developers to take over the user's computer, and
> we don't have one saying that Debian image display programs shouldn't
> send copies of all of the pictures to a private Debian mailing list
> for our personal entertainment.
>
> Given that software which phones home is becoming more and more
> common, and it seems that even honest and reasonable developers like
> yourself are starting to implement such functionality, I think we will
> have to update the Debian policy documents to make it clear that this
> is not acceptable in a Debian program. This is something that I will
> take care of internally.
>
Ok, I understand your point, I respect and, as i told you since
beginning, i agree on disabling
it for very pure, and ethically coherent distributions like Debian.
As you understood, this data collecting it is something that i need
for supporting the meshlab development, so i would like to find a
solution that, make as easy as possible for debian to get rid of this
(a bit nasty) phoning home, but i seems to me a bit silly to disable
this feature for less coherent distributions like ubuntu for example.
So a possible reasonable, solution is that i detect at compile time if
you are compiling meshlab on a debian system, and ONLY in that case,
disable any phoning home option. Adding a compile time option would be
something that a lazy package maintainer could directly copy from your
work of meshlab packaging (that is what most of the derivative
packaging systems like fink,macports, do, even those for very close
systems like macs...).
So what are the specific preprocessor symbols defined by default when
compiling on a Debian?
(do not fear to create any friction here, I understand and truly
respect debian policies,
I am only searching the best way to modify my personal interest (that
in some sense conflicts with these policies).
Cheers
P.
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