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I'm not going to get into the free/non-free conversation other than to say I |
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appreciate, and I think a lot of users appreciate at least having free & |
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"non-free" software available in the portage tree, whether or not they |
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choose to use the non-free stuff. |
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Though I still think it's important to have some kind of license |
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acknowledgement for licenses other than the GPL. The reason is that some |
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licenses may have restrictions that the end-user is not aware of, and it is |
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not immediately apparent what license a particular package is when a user |
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installs it. Or that package could depend on another package with a |
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different license that the user is unware of. I don't think of it as being |
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"politically correct." I just think it'll help the user know what he/she is |
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getting into. |
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|
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So while I don't consider it an absolute requirement, I do think that it |
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doesn't in anyway "harm" Gentoo and is generally a "good thing." |
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|
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-=m=- |
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|
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-----Original Message----- |
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From: Brett I. Holcomb [mailto:brettholcomb@×××××××.net] |
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Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 8:35 PM |
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To: gentoo-dev@g.o |
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Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo internal structure |
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|
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To be honest Jason, I think we need to leave it as is. Gentoo is a distro |
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that allows us to get work done and not get into the "if you use non-free |
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software you have betrayed humanity" argument. If we're not careful we will |
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end up the same as Debian. The person raising the question is a zealot who |
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will accept nothing less then all free software and no non-free. That was |
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explained many times and he, like all of us have a choice - use a distro |
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that |
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fits whatever philosophy you have. Gentoo does not have the Debian |
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philosophy so for people who want that they can use Debian or another |
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equivalent. For those of us who just want to do a job and if non-free is |
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the |
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best then we'll use the non-free/commerical stuff and stick with Gentoo. |
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Why should all of us who agree with the Gentoo philosopy have to add a bunch |
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of licenses stuff to make.conf or wherever just to satisfy people who would |
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be happier with Debian type distros anyway. We can get in a situation like |
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those who try to be politically correct - they are constantly modifying |
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their |
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school, program, whatever to fit the whims of the latest politically correct |
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mandate. Gentoo's social contract is available to read - if we feel so |
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strongly that we can't agree to then we can go to another distro. |
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The id licensing is, to me, an odd case. That's the only package it's been |
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an issue. VMware and the others seem happy to let us have it in portage - |
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probably because they are time limited demos. |
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Don't mess with a good setup - it isn't broken so don't fix it <G>. |
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-- |
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