Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: QA issue: No stable skype in Tree

[Kent Fredric]

On 6/19/07, Steve Long <slong@××××××××××××××××××.uk> wrote:
> Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 06:01 +0100, Steve Long wrote:
> >> Stephen Bennett wrote:
> >> > Not everyone sees that as a reason not to use a potentially useful
> >> > piece of software. We're not debian.
> >>
> >> Could you clarify whether this is indeed a Gentoo QA issue, or in fact a
> >> licensing issue? If the latter case, this discussion should prob'y go to
> >> the new -project ml if and when, or indeed the user forums.
> >
> > The "problem" with skype is really a problem with our policy.  The
> > policy is really designed for open source software which we can actually
> > "fix" when we find a problem.
> Yeah and that's kinda the whole argument against closed-source. I fail to
> see how that's the problem of a Free software distro? Further, if it's a
> policy issue, why are you guys continuing the thread? Oh I see, when it's
> stuff *you* care about, it's development. Cool.

I'll try not respond directly to the trollish like statement, and will
try to keep my response as non-troll-like as possible ( i might
fail..but if so, its because of my earlier defilement I underwent when
I voluntarily  installed  IE in linux/wine :( )  I think its fine to
discuss such issues as long we are calm and rational about it. Half
the discussion is to as whether or not this is a policy problem, and
not purely a technical one, as afaik, theres no ML dedicated to
discussing which ML something should be on :)

Lets try the similarities between say, SunJava and Skype, both having
alternatives ( ie: blackdown ), ( im talking about the JVM here, which
to the best of my knowledge is not yet OSS ).

Both are restricted by upstream in licensing that wont permit us to
host the files ourself.

To the best of my knowledge, neither Java or Skype have any source
available that we can fix ourselves.

The discussion question is, if java for some reason of insanity, were
to release a new version, which gentoo deemed 'unstable', and then a
week later prohibit all downloads of prior versions, what would we
do?.

The fact is, that regardless of 'policy', people want Java, and many
servers using Java may be utilizing software which they had to pay
for, in their JVM. ( And you guys have all seen how cross-version
friendly java stuff can be right? 1.4->1.5 gave me good times... )
And it would be senseless for us to say 'hmm... java's not OSS free,
lets take it out of gentoo altogether, considering that until now, it
had been quite satisfactory in portage.

I'm probably as much an OpenSource / FreeSoftware advocate as the rest
of this ML ( I had a friend order me a Chë Stallman T' from literally
the other side of the world ), and windows & Microsoft  drive me nuts,
but as painful as it is for me to say this, I believe if there was a
non-opensource static Linux-native build of internet explorer, and
Microsofts licensing permitted it, that there would be one day an
ebuild in portage for it ( it would probably be permanently hard
masked tho, under 'this is suspicious enemy software' which would
require you to set SELL_MY_SOUL="YES" in make.conf ), because fact of
the matter is, people without windows still need that evil little tyke
to test websites so that the lesser informed greater percentage of the
population ( ~80% ) who still use it to surf won't run screaming from
your site and never return.

<gentoo-project-esque-content>
IMO, Gentoo is in the middle of the grey lands between "only use
opensource" , and "you corporate weenie". While Gentoo does actively
encourage opensource software, it still permits you to be the one who
wears the pants, the one to make the decision, making Gentoo your own
project, not some elitist dev's extremist ideals, and this opens up
the user base, and helps produce a migration path by giving the user
something they're familiar with, like, and use, while we create
something better and progressively coax them into using it, and thus
further spreading the good opensource futher than it otherwise would.
</g-p-e-c>

*whimpers* i think that is all... nobody torch me please :)






>
> > With the closed-source stuff, our policy
> > should be a bit more lax since we're at the mercy of the upstream.
> Er what? Some of us don't wish to be "at the mercy of" anyone, especially
> not some corporation nicking VOIP. That's why we use GNU software.
>
> > Also, remember that our policy says that 30 days is *suggested* before
> > stabilization.  The maintainer has the authority to ask for
> > stabilization sooner, even the same day the package is put into the
> > tree, if there is sufficient reason for doing so.
> >
> Whatever; the point is y'all were much more vicious about someone offering
> all the code under the GPL.. Honestly, this whole email makes me wonder why
> you work in FOSS. tuomov only wanted to be sure updates were issued
> promptly. What exactly is the technical difference?
>
> >> As for potentially useful, so was Internet Explorer, last time I looked
> >> at what you could do with its Object Model. I still ain't voting to bring
> >> it to Gentoo.. ;)
> >
> > Please refrain from these kinds of "arguments" that have no technical
> > bearing.  Internet Explorer doesn't even *run* on Gentoo.  If it did, it
> > would likely be in the tree since quite a few people would likely use
> > it, even if just for testing.  I know that if I were able to test things
> > on IE from Linux without having to fire up VMware that I would be quite
> > happy.
> >
> Er let's not get into it. Use WINE or a dual-boot, or VMware, or xen or
> whatever you want. (It was a joke, hence the wink. Call the proctors..
> whoops!)
>
> /me wanders off mumbling about hypocrisy, and thinking about !anarchy in
> #bash..
>
> --
> gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list
>
>


-- 
Kent
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