Am 04.01.2020 um 01:53 schrieb Faidon Liambotis: > On Sat, Jan 04, 2020 at 12:44:49AM +0100, Patrick Matthäi wrote: >> So if we are not allowed to distribute it anymore we have got the >> following options: >> >> 1) we keep the the current free database in our repository, which is >> free and works. We dont care about the precision after X years (not our >> fault) > That would be (very) misleading and I'm not sure if it would be in the > service of our users. The data gets stale really quick --I think it was > something like 2-5% loss per month? My opinion is that shipping no data > is better than shipping garbage data...
I support this opionion for 100%. >> 2) we drop the database package. Also if it is something like contrib, >> but if there is no free working alternative, shouldnt we (as in Debian >> as open source community) then also remove all libraries and >> implementations using GeoIP from Maxmind from our repositories? > I don't agree with that; the libraries are free-libre, the file format > is open and freely documented (CC-BY-SA 3.0), and there are both readers > and writers for those formats in the archive. There are even > free-as-in-beer databases available in the wild, although that wouldn't > even be a requirement IMO. There is nothing in the DFSG that says that > software is free-libre only if it operates on publicly available > free-libre data. We have got many similar examples in another category: games Old games like Quake, Red Alert, Roaler Coaster Tycoon etc etc, the game code now itself is free: sometimes reverse engin., new code or open sourced by the publisher itself. But often the required game data (images, videos, etc) are not distributable and required from the original cd-rom. So the game code itself is free, but we have to put it in contrib, because it is only useable with non-free data. This is exactly the situation with geoip now: there is so much free code, but it is only useable with a non-free additional. That also means every software depending on that/compiling on that is also contrib and so on not main/free anymore. A desaster > >> 3) We/others/I and others start a fork: I would welcome volunters to >> start a fork to maintain the database, so that it is not useless in a >> few years, but this is also one of my last options. I would like to have >> a solution with Maxmind together. > I wouldn't mind that option of course, but I have my doubts it'd be > successful... That's essentially MaxMind's entire business that you'd be > trying to replicate, after all :) Correct ;) But I also have to think about some other ways. And Debian is not the only distribution with this problem now > > How about option (4): > - We drop geoip-database, assuming that we determine we can't legally > distribute it anymore, or ship it in non-free if we determine we can. > [I haven't read the terms yet] I would like to have an expert opinion about the options.. The license itself sucks and says fcky. If understood the law correctly the it would be enough to get a free version of the data without any california users (if in/or country database.. who cares). But the ball is now on the side of maxmind.. > > - We let users generate and/or ship their own MMDBs. For example, > organizations may have internal data in their databases of sufficient > accuracy that they can use to generate MMDBs and use them locally. This would move all packages linking again libgeoip then to contrib > > - Optionally, users can also use geoipupdate, which is already in Debian > (and in contrib). They can sign up on maxmind.com, for either a free > or paid account, configure geoiupdate with their username & license > key and get fresh and up-to-date databases. They can continue to use > all MMDB/GeoIP2 software as they previously did. Again to contrib > > Definitely not as easy to set up or practical as the previous situation, > but still better than options 1-3 I think :) > >> So @Maxmind: >> >> <snip> > My intepretation of the change is very different than yours, but I'll > avoid speaking for MaxMind folks here :) > > Regards, > Faidon
