On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 05:08:46PM +0200, Bart Martens wrote: > How's the progress on this ITP? Who is currently working on > this? I think officially Robert McQueen is "owner" of this > ITP. Is Matt Zimmerman taking over? > > I see that this ITP is about trying to package flash with GPL. > Are you sure flash _can_ be packaged GPL? Have you found > solutions for the problems described in the mails in this ITP? > > If flash cannot be packaged GPL, do you intent to package it > in the non-free section for flash support for Mozilla?
The trouble is that it includes some components from the Netscape Plugin SDK which are not redistributable (as far as I can tell). This makes the package itself illegal to distribute, regardless of any Debian policy. If it were to be packaged, it would be necessary to create a new tarball which contained only the unencumbered components, and distribute that. Or, if there is cooperation from the upstream author, maybe he/she will remove those components, or provide a separate distribution which does not contain them. I don't know whether anyone has contacted the upstream author yet. > I see that flash is already packaged for Netscape. I'd like to see flash > packaged for Mozilla. Should we package flash again separately for Mozilla? > Or can we modify the existing package to support flash for both Netscape and > Mozilla (this is a question on dependencies)? Flash is included in the most recent builds of Netscape 4, there is no flash package in Debian. > When I surf with Mozilla to a flash-only website (yuk), I'm > suggested to download a tarball from Macromedia. The most > straightforward solution seems to be to package that tarball > into a Debian package. Or should we use another source than > Macromedia to make a package for flash for Mozilla? I haven't examined that tarball; are you sure that it works with Mozilla? It is probably intended for Netscape 4 users. > I'm interested in packaging the Macromedia tarball into a > package, unless _this_ ITP produces a legal and usable > package for flash for Mozilla within a reasonable time. > > Is it legal to simply package flash from Macromedia in the > non-free section? I guess not. Should someone ask Macromedia > for permission? How is this officially done? I guess an > official Debian developer, which I'm not (yet?), should ask > Macromedia... You should examine the tarball from Macromedia and read the license agreement to determine whether it is redistributable. If it is, it can go into non-free. -- - mdz
