Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo
Harald van D3k wrote: > Right, which is why at the same time it would be useful to have an > option to not install those files. There's no problem with USE > conditionals in LICENSE; LICENSE="GPL-2 firmware? ( freedist )" or > expanded further would be fine, and simply nuke those files on install > with USE="-firmware". Nick White is already working on modifying the kernel-2 eclass so that it's possible to remove such files, using the deblobbing scripts from the FSF-LA. See http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=266157. Your license suggestion would be a perfect accompaniment. > The GPL-2 licensed parts of all the kernel packages -- so probably > everything that matters -- could be installed with > ACCEPT_LICENSE="GPL-2" with my above suggestion. Yes, and using just 'freedist' as you suggested, should remove all the hassle of keeping the list up-to-date. Greg KH wrote: > Also note that the license of the firmware files do not matter to > almost everyone using the kernel, as almost no one uses those files > anymore, the ones in the linux-firmware package should be used > instead. The key word here is 'almost'. For example, I happened to be using one or two of them, before I found out they were non-free. I was oblivious to it initially because it wasn't reflected in the license. All I'm asking for is that users who care about this will be shown an accurate license, so that they can be as free as possible, if they choose that path. We obviously have different beliefs on the issue, but isn't it better to accommodate both--aren't we aiming for essentially the same goals anyway? :)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Documentation licenses and license_groups
Am Dienstag 05 Januar 2010 schrieb Ulrich Mueller:
> Licenses for Works of Opinion and Judgment (maybe omit this group?):
>
>CCPL-Attribution-NoDerivs-3.0 (there's only 2.5 in ${PORTDIR}/licenses/)
>("GNU Verbatim Copying License" - not yet in ${PORTDIR}/licenses/)
I think they don't belong there - no matter what the fsf thinks (I think their
views about different freedoms on software and on documents are a bit weird),
I think we should have a "free" license set which guarantees the four
freedoms, no matter if it's software or documentation.
--
Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/
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Re: [gentoo-dev] QA last rites for app-emulation/uae
Am Dienstag 05 Januar 2010 schrieb Diego E. Pettenò: > # Diego E. Pettenò (05 Jan 2010) > # on behalf of QA team > # > # Fails to build with different configurations (bug #205050, > # open January 2008, with patch and bug #262243, open > # March 2009). > # > # Removal on 2010-03-06 > app-emulation/uae I'll try to rescue that one. -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber/Mail:ha...@hboeck.de signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-dev] Some ideas on the licensing issue
Hi, Had some more thoughts about that licensing issue and wanted to make some suggestions. I think the GPL-compatible set makes barely sense. The problem with it is, as stated by various people, that we have different GPLs. GPL2 and 3 are incompatible, so it doesn't mean "GPL-compatible" are all licenses that can be mixed together. I don't know how/if we should resolve this. Difference between OSI and FSF approved: AFAIK, I once read about one license that OSI approved and FSF not. Do we have any affected packages in the tree where FSF and OSI differ? I think the definitions of FSF and OSI are pretty much the same, their differences are more on a political level, not on a licensing one. So I'd like it much more to have one big "This is free and open source software" set. For documentation, we may want to have another set? I'll add one with the well known free documentation licenses (FDL, CC by, cc by-sa). If we decide to go some other way, we can throw it away, but I wanted to start something ;-) What bites me is the man-pages issue. Is it really the case that there's no free (as in freedom) man-pages package? Maybe then we should provide an option to install the base system without man-pages? -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber/Mail:ha...@hboeck.de http://schokokeks.org - professional webhosting signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Documentation licenses and license_groups
> On Thu, 7 Jan 2010, Hanno Böck wrote:
>> Licenses for Works of Opinion and Judgment (maybe omit this group?):
>>
>> CCPL-Attribution-NoDerivs-3.0 (there's only 2.5 in ${PORTDIR}/licenses/)
>> ("GNU Verbatim Copying License" - not yet in ${PORTDIR}/licenses/)
> I think they don't belong there - no matter what the fsf thinks
Agreed.
> (I think their views about different freedoms on software and on
> documents are a bit weird), I think we should have a "free" license
> set which guarantees the four freedoms, no matter if it's software
> or documentation.
There are some borderline cases however. For example, man-pages-posix
contains the following clause: "Modifications to the text are
permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard are clearly
marked as such in the text." which is perfectly reasonable in this
special case, but makes it non-free if one follows the definition
blindly. (And indeed, Debian has these man pages in "non-free" which
is stupid, IMHO.)
So the plan is:
- Add GPL-1 and LGPL-2 to @GPL-COMPATIBLE
- Add a new group "@FSF-APPROVED-OTHER" containing the following:
Arphic
CCPL-Attribution-2.0
CCPL-Attribution-ShareAlike-2.0
DSL
FDL-1.1 FDL-1.2 FDL-1.3
FreeArt
GPL-1 GPL-2 GPL-3
OFL-1.1
OPL
If there are no objections, I'll commit this in the next days.
Ulrich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Documentation licenses and license_groups
Am Donnerstag 07 Januar 2010 schrieb Ulrich Mueller: > So the plan is: > - Add GPL-1 and LGPL-2 to @GPL-COMPATIBLE > - Add a new group "@FSF-APPROVED-OTHER" containing the following: > Arphic > CCPL-Attribution-2.0 > CCPL-Attribution-ShareAlike-2.0 > DSL > FDL-1.1 FDL-1.2 FDL-1.3 > FreeArt > GPL-1 GPL-2 GPL-3 > OFL-1.1 > OPL > > If there are no objections, I'll commit this in the next days. I already went ahead and committed two new sets - FREE-DOCUMENTS and MISC- FREE. The above ones could probably be all added to FREE-DOCUMENTS. -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber/Mail:ha...@hboeck.de http://schokokeks.org - professional webhosting signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo
On 01/07/2010 01:19 AM, Vincent Launchbury wrote: All I'm asking for is that users who care about this will be shown an accurate license, I think that this really sums this whole thing up. Can you run a computer with ONLY FOSS on it (firmware to ROMs to hard drive controlers) - probably not, but maybe. I think that is really a separate matter. I think this really just boils down to this: If we have a piece of metadata on a package it should be accurate. The license should reflect the license of whatever ends up on a user's hard drive. Maybe knowing the license isn't that important - in that case maybe we shouldn't track licenses at all. However, if we're going to track the license, then it should be completely accurate (or at least we should aim for that even if Gentoo metadata can never be perfect). That's why I also support having GPL2 vs GPL2+ / etc in the license field. Sure, it won't be exactly right for a while, but it is worth shooting for. Ditto for other metadata - homepages should be official, maintainers should be active, and all that. QA will always have work to do as this will never be 100% right for everything in the tree, but there is value in being accurate anytime we can be. By all means the default install should have an ACCEPT_LICENSE that is both legal and fully functional - if people want to trim it down that is up to them. Maybe somebody wants to use Gentoo to build an appliance and they want to go pure non-copyleft - that's a major chore but we could still give them a great head-start on identifying where the issues with that are and at least getting them 80% of a functional system. I think this whole thread really boils down to - make the license accurate. What users do with it is up to them, and we don't need to support non-standard configurations just because we make them possible.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Some ideas on the licensing issue
> On Thu, 7 Jan 2010, Hanno Böck wrote: > I think the GPL-compatible set makes barely sense. The problem with > it is, as stated by various people, that we have different GPLs. > GPL2 and 3 are incompatible, so it doesn't mean "GPL-compatible" are > all licenses that can be mixed together. I don't know how/if we > should resolve this. So what do you suggest? Remove "GPL-COMPATIBLE" and move everything into "FSF-APPROVED"? > For documentation, we may want to have another set? I'll add one > with the well known free documentation licenses (FDL, CC by, cc > by-sa). If we decide to go some other way, we can throw it away, but > I wanted to start something ;-) Is your "FREE-DOCUMENTS" meant to include things like fonts, or do we need another group for them? > What bites me is the man-pages issue. Is it really the case that > there's no free (as in freedom) man-pages package? For man-pages "freedist" isn't really a good label. It should rather be something like "as-is GPL-2 BSD". I've opened bug 299893 for it. > Maybe then we should provide an option to install the base system > without man-pages? Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. We're not Debian. Ulrich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Some ideas on the licensing issue
On 01/07/2010 05:46 AM, Hanno Böck wrote: I think the GPL-compatible set makes barely sense. ++ Difference between OSI and FSF approved: ... I think the definitions of FSF and OSI are pretty much the same, ... So I'd like it much more to have one big "This is free and open source software" set. -- I think that we should make the license groups as objective as possible. EVERYBODY can agree that such a license is or isn't OSI approved or FSF approved - whether they hate or love the FSF/etc. By all means every gentoo dev is welcome to post on their blog "if you want free and open source software put this in your ACCEPT_LICENSE" - and everybody can post comments on the blog calling them the next saint of the Church of GNU, or the devil incarnate. Let's just keep the portage tree to the facts. Now groups that are fairly legally objective like "redistributable-without-modification" I think are useful. They could be useful in doing QA checks on RESTRICT=mirror, for example. However, let's try to stick with simple objective criteria that both people who hate a license and love it can agree on. What bites me is the man-pages issue. Is it really the case that there's no free (as in freedom) man-pages package? Maybe then we should provide an option to install the base system without man-pages? I guess strictly-speaking man-pages aren't essential as part of system, but they'd seem like a big omission to leave out. Unless we want a free-only profile (nobody seems to want to fully support this), I think that the better option is this: Write up instructions on how to have a free gentoo install and put it on your blog or whatever. If they've good enough maybe we can have the doc team make it official (gotta consider support issues here). You can always stick the man-pages in package_provided or whatever so that portage doesn't try to install it. You can also make your own profile, and post instructions for the world to see. Again, break it and you get to keep the pieces and all that...
Re: [gentoo-dev] Some ideas on the licensing issue
Am Donnerstag 07 Januar 2010 schrieb Ulrich Mueller: > > On Thu, 7 Jan 2010, Hanno Böck wrote: > > > > I think the GPL-compatible set makes barely sense. The problem with > > it is, as stated by various people, that we have different GPLs. > > GPL2 and 3 are incompatible, so it doesn't mean "GPL-compatible" are > > all licenses that can be mixed together. I don't know how/if we > > should resolve this. > > So what do you suggest? Remove "GPL-COMPATIBLE" and move everything > into "FSF-APPROVED"? Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I'm currently in contact with FSF-people so I hope we can clarify if all the "looks free but is not mentioned on the FSF homepage"-licenses. > > For documentation, we may want to have another set? I'll add one > > with the well known free documentation licenses (FDL, CC by, cc > > by-sa). If we decide to go some other way, we can throw it away, but > > I wanted to start something ;-) > > Is your "FREE-DOCUMENTS" meant to include things like fonts, or do we > need another group for them? I was unsure about that but I'd say yes unless we want to complicate things more than neccessary. I already put in one font license. -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber/Mail:ha...@hboeck.de signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Monthly Gentoo Council Reminder for January
2010/1/2 Pacho Ramos : > [...] I failed to see if, finally, an approval > from the council is needed for merging [multilib] to portage-2.2 or not The only approval that's required to merge anything to an official portage branch is Zac's (zmedico). He may have to follow some rules and wait for some vote from the council when for example EAPIs are concerned but whether to merge code or not is his decision and responsibility. That said I've never seen him refusing to merge anything that was worth it. > if [multilib] will be discussed finally on this meeting. Technically we don't need to (I'll explain that in another email) but we may. I'm just starting to work on the agenda for the 18th and I don't have everything in place yet. Denis.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo
On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 01:19:24AM -0500, Vincent Launchbury wrote: > Greg KH wrote: > > Also note that the license of the firmware files do not matter to > > almost everyone using the kernel, as almost no one uses those files > > anymore, the ones in the linux-firmware package should be used > > instead. > > The key word here is 'almost'. For example, I happened to be using one > or two of them, before I found out they were non-free. I was > oblivious to it initially because it wasn't reflected in the license. So how did this change anything? Did you change hardware platforms to ones with opensource firmware files? If so, what ones did you use instead? Is the firmware for them open source? > All I'm asking for is that users who care about this will be shown an > accurate license, so that they can be as free as possible, if they > choose that path. We obviously have different beliefs on the issue, but > isn't it better to accommodate both--aren't we aiming for essentially > the same goals anyway? :) No, I think you are trying to solve a non-problem. Think through my question above please. If the kernel loads a firmware file that is not free, or if the device itself has a firmware in it that you can not change so easily, has _nothing_ to do with the license of the kernel, nor the "freeness" of the software you are running. thanks, greg k-h
