Clint Adams <clint@debian.org> writes: > On Wed, May 07, 2025 at 02:20:44PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote: >>Thanks for answers! Surprisingly I now find myself agreeing that your >>approach is reasonable and is consistent with existing Debian practices. >>I just wish that the existing practices were more libre and more >>consistent with documented policies, but I also think this is not the >>popular opinion. > > So, let's delve deeper on the practical impact of such consistency > or not. Let's say we have a hypothetical package called > gnipgnop-rattrap. It's an accessibility tool which tracks elements > of your face using pretrained Haar cascade classifier models, and > based on where you look, moves the "mouse" pointer. The models > we ship it with have been trained solely on 75 gigabytes of images > captured from Disney films, which are not available anywhere > because the people who trained the models are afraid of being sued. > > What should Debian do? Remove the package from the archive so no > one can use it? Patch it to download the models from a random > URL which may or may not be accessible? Construct 75 gigabytes of > DFSG-free annotated training data to stuff into the source package? Doesn't Aigars' reply answer that? Assuming it wins the vote. https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2025/05/msg00075.html My reading is that if it is possible for a skilled person to re-create an equivalent model following some description, under Aigars' proposal, it would be permissible to have gnipgnop-rattrap in Debian main, including the model trained on 75 gigabytes of Disney films. That is not my preference nor what I would want to see happen, but I think it is consistent with how Debian approach including non-free firmware in the official installer images, and how Debian approaches licensing on other non-source files inside packages. /Simon
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature