Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: RFC: Niches and new developers (especially xbox)

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 11:43, Todd Berman wrote:
> And yet you sign off on releases that contain distributing win32 codecs,
> font cab files right from microsoft, mp3 support, dvd support, etc?

I'm just now the manager.  I haven't ever signed off on anything (yet). 
Not to mention, what is included on the live/packages CDs isn't really
my concern, only the quality of what we provide.

Also, the GRP sets don't have dvd in USE.  I don't know of any package
provided in GRP that pulls in the win32 codecs, though it is possible
that I am wrong there.  The fonts are free, provided you do not modify
them from their original state.  Also, the bindist USE flag actually
disables the packaging of the MS fonts.  So no, we don't distribute
material that is questionable with the exception of mp3 support, which
has yet to be shown that it is illegal to distribute.  While it is
questionable whether mp3 support is legal to distribute, the patent
owners are not a monopolistic competitor of our product whom have shown
that they are willing to use laws such as the DMCA to pursue "criminals"
who bypass their security measures.

Bypassing the security measures of the Xbox absolutely is illegal, at
least in the United States.  There is no question in that.  That reason
alone would be why I don't think we should ever provide an official Xbox
Gentoo release.

As Mike said earlier, though.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with us
providing ebuilds for *open source packages* that just happen to run on
the Xbox.  Essentially, we would be unable to document the installation
procedure, unless we simply skipped the entire "actually getting Linux
on your Xbox" part, which really is the whole point of our installation
documents. =]

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering QA Manager/Games Developer
Gentoo Linux

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