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On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 12:36:34AM -0500, Vincent Launchbury wrote: |
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> 1) Not all of the licenses are completely accurate. For example, the |
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> Linux kernels are listed as soley GPL-2, yet they contain blobs of |
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> non-free firmware. Perhaps a general-purpose "not-free" license could be |
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> appended to such packages. This would only affect people who choose to |
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> use the feature. It could be minused from the FSF-APPROVED group for |
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> example. |
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Actually, this is a case where the license on the ebuild is wrong, not |
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the license group. The kernel ebuilds should have GPL-2 and something |
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else, and by definition should not pass @FSF-APPROVED alone. |
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> Also relating to this, what is freedist? The package app-text/dos2unix |
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> lists 'freedist' as its license, and /usr/portage/licenses/freedist says |
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> only "Freely Distributable". Several other packages do this, and I'm |
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> sure it's not correct. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the dos2unix |
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> package is from http://www.thefreecountry.com/tofrodos/, which clearly |
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> says its GPLv2. Packages like this could be looked into and fixed. |
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tofrodos is NOT dos2unix. If you compare the sources you'll see they are |
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radically different. |
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The COPYRIGHT file in dos2unix is actually a 2-clause BSD license. I've |
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updated the ebuild suitably. |
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Yes, we do definitely need to review licenses on packages where they |
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aren't clear, correct any mistakes. |
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> 2) There are no free versions of the kernel in the main tree. The Latin |
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> American FSF maintains blob-free kernels at |
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> http://www.linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/. They could |
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> be added alongside the official vanilla ebuilds. |
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File a bug with some ebuilds. |
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> 3) Some free software packages bring in non-free optional dependencies |
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> by default. For example, media-gfx/imagemagick brings in |
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> media-fonts/corefonts. As suggested by Sebastian, a free profile could be |
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> created, that changes these defaults, to reduce the hassle of |
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> maintaining a free system. Again, this would only affect users who |
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> choose to use that profile. |
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A profile is not the answer here. |
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An optional DEP block || ( media-fonts/corefonts ... ) where the other |
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item does resolve using ACCEPT_LICENSES is what should be used. |
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In this line of work, we would greatly appreciate bugs being filed for |
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all cases where dependencies are not resolvable with your reasonable |
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ACCEPT_LICENSES setting. |
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> 4) Using something like ACCEPT_LICENSES="-* @FSF-APPROVED" is a good |
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> start, but its quite a hassle to keep checking all the licenses. One |
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> annoyance is packages like sys-devel/gcc. gcc has the libgcc license, |
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> which is just GPLv2+, with some extra permissions granted. Although it's |
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> important to make such a distinction, these extra freedoms are |
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> irrelevant to license filtering. |
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> |
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> I suppose the only feasible way to fix this would be to expand the |
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> license groups in /usr/portage/profiles/license_groups. Would it cause |
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> any problems if they were quite large? |
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No, the file can become a lot larger before any problems come up. |
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I deliberately introduced @BINARY-REDISTRIBUTABLE to help packaging of |
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the 10.x release. They simply set that into their ACCEPT_LICENSES and |
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then we're reasonable set. |
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In your case, I propose that we add one or more stacked groups, with an |
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initial content as such: |
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License group name: LIBRE-FREE |
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Purpose: easily selectable license group for libre-free systems. |
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Initial license group contents: |
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@FSF-APPROVED @GPL-COMPATIBLE @OSI-APPROVED @LIBRE-FREE-1 |
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License group name: LIBRE-FREE-1 |
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Purpose: license group to put additional special-case libre-free |
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licenses in. |
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Initial license group contents: |
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libgcc libstdc++ gcc-runtime-library-exception-3.1 |
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We might be able to merge LIBRE-FREE-1 directly into the LIBRE-FREE |
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entry, the portage folk would be able to answer if there would be a |
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performance benefit to having it split or not. |
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> Another option might be to introduce an optional IS_FREE="yes/no" option |
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> to the ebuild files, which could override the other license settings. |
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No. |
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> 5) Documentation on how to set up and maintain a fully free system could |
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> be added. |
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Under my license_group proposal: |
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# echo 'ACCEPT_LICENSES="-* @LIBRE-FREE"' >>/etc/make.conf |
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done. |
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead |
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E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
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GnuPG FP : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85 |
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