-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 16/07/14 03:54 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 3:44 PM, Denis Dupeyron > <calc...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> >> Let me try and be clearer. The packages I'm concerned with have >> had their distfiles backed up. We're not yet in that situation >> but the day the publisher stops distributing these distfiles, >> I'll be ready to send the right email to the (hopefully) right >> person and hope for the best. I was suggesting we did that more >> often. And with that I'll stop here, because these childish >> arguments are not worth any more of my time. >> > > If people as individuals want to do that then this is something > between them and their local government - it is their > responsibility to follow their own local laws or face the > consequences. If it is a game they bought then having an original > copy of it is even completely legal everywhere I'm aware of. > > It only becomes an issue if Gentoo is going to host a copy of it, > even if privately. If this is a matter of having some Gentoo > project that lets people donate CDs of old games so that perhaps > some day we can get permission to distribute copies of them, then > I'd question the relevance to our mission, but it seems legal > enough. On the other hand, having a server someplace full of > tarballs of unlicensed reproductions of distfiles seems like a > legal landmine. > > I think it is a laudable concept - it just probably isn't wise to > do it under our organization as we really aren't set up for > something like this. We do operate in many jurisdictions where > that activity is likely to be found illegal, and the US is just one > of them (the one where we keep most of our money, BTW). > > Now something that has been talked about is having a better way to > archive patches and such which are legal to store and > redistribute. We don't really have a good solution for that either, > but it seems like an easier problem to solve legally. > > Rich >
Also, somewhat tangental to this, I personally think it's also a great idea to contact upstreams -now- to try and get permission or license exemptions or whatever so that we can mirror (or fetch, for fetch-restricted distfiles) even now. It takes a long time and a lot of back and forth but it is possible, on occasion. Then it's just a matter of adding the gentoo-permissive text to the license file (or adding it to LICENSE and ${PORTDIR}/licenses/ as a separate file) and we're good to go. I've personally only had success doing this with foldingathome, to date, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAlPG34MACgkQ2ugaI38ACPAVMgD9EFX7bUOwtOp9OifUwIU4Gx0H /XvhOQ5uTFoqdY7DrbwA/1Pu8+velVB6yd/40WWo/ARqptbIGGF8leaDaKqQAtv5 =kQ3Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----