Le Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 02:20:33PM -0400, Zachary Palmer a écrit : > Hello, all. It has been my understanding that the reason that the > [EMAIL PROTECTED] distributed computing software has not been made a Debian > package is that the license under which it is released does not allow it > to be free. This software package has pretty much the best reason for > being closed source that I've encountered; they want to prevent > falsified results from damaging the research.
Dear Zachary, as said in another mail, [EMAIL PROTECTED] is definitely non-free. Hovever, if Debian would become an "authorized distributor", the licence would be suitable for non-free. You may only use unmodified versions of [EMAIL PROTECTED] obtained through authorized distributors to connect to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] servers. Use of other software to connect to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] servers is strictly prohibited. Distribution of this software is prohibited. It may only be obtained by downloading from Stanford's web site (http://folding.stanford.edu and pages linked therein). I guess that in that case, there would be a link from the Stanford site to packages.debian.org for instance. However, one thing that you should make clear when contacting upstream is that their software would eventually become released together with Debian stable, and therefore not be upgraded (unless the stable relase team would be OK, why not ?) This is also valid in the case of a wrapper: their binary could require some libraries which are too old in stable, hence breaking the wrapper. Do they frequently upgrade ? How long can an old client connect ? In that case, packaging would be commiting yourself to follow the upgrades closely. I do not think that it would help our users if the Debian package would periodically provide a binary which is not allowed to connect. Maybe the Debian-Med packaging team could provide you a safety net by co-maintaining the package and hosting the /debian dir in our SVN repo, so that you can take holidays without coming back with an obsolete package and angry users. However, would the package not be actively followed by a dedicated person, it would be better removed (or not packaged at that point) Lastly, I am not sure that closed-sourceness is the best strategy against cheating. I guess that the expertise area of [EMAIL PROTECTED] is structural biology, wheras the expertise of cheaters is... well... cheating. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Debian-Med packaging team Wako, Saitama, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
