Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Sven 
> If you really want to get a cut of the profit, why not start
selling CDs?

i am not speaking for myself, but i see that some people dont like this kind of 
thing, and in particular i am thinking about people developping software at 
universities. i don't think it is that they want a share for themself,
but that theier university wants a share of it so as be able continuealy 
support the the peoples who develop said software.
do you suggest the universities start selling debian cds to finance themself.

also another concern for this peoples is the right to modification of the 
software,
someone can take the software modify it and then sell it, without according 
credits to the true author, or giving some of the money back to it.

how can a university make a financing deal with a private company to exploit 
one of their product, if said company can just grab the source and develop it 
for themself.

in the current situation you cannot even say, you can use this productnbut you 
have to make a $5 donnation to debian :).

i think this kind of problem is not so much about the distribution vendors, 
altough some take a big share for the cds, hey redhat is 50$ or such, but more 
the big companies, with big money, like microsoft, sony, ibm, ...

Friendly,

Sven LUTHER

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Sven 
> people would buy an official Debian CD for 500 $. The more people know about
> the idea of Free Software, the less likely is such behaviour.

like said, the true problem is not on selling CDs, but on using the product in 
their own product, without giving some of the benefits back to the people who 
made it.

this is ok for people who code the thing as part of their hobby, and don't need 
to live from it, but that coudl mean in the future most of the software will 
be written, by people doing IS management, and then writting freeware between 
two reboots of NT servers.

and then most universities make money from deals with big companies to use 
their software designs, what will happen to that if they just release 
everything to GPL, ? I just read somewhere that they are less CS graduates 
every year, this will not help i
in that. will the free software movement be the death of computing like we know 
it today ?

Friendly,

Sven LUTHER

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Carey Evans 
This should probably be in gnu.misc.discuss or somesuch...

Sven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> like said, the true problem is not on selling CDs, but on using the
> product in their own product, without giving some of the benefits
> back to the people who made it.

If you GPL it this becomes much harder, since I could then buy a copy
of the derived product and put it on my web site for free.

> this is ok for people who code the thing as part of their hobby, and
> don't need to live from it, but that coudl mean in the future most
> of the software will be written, by people doing IS management, and
> then writting freeware between two reboots of NT servers.

Out of interest, where do you think all the current GPL and BSD
software has come from?  RMS seems to be doing well enough off free
software to take a holiday in NZ.  A lot of people in the Debian
project devote all their "spare time" to free software in the form of
Debian GNU/Linux.  Red Hat employs people to work on Linux and
associated programs and libraries, such as Gtk.

Maybe the software will be written in all the spare time the techs
have now that everyone has Linux instead of Win95/NT, and they don't
have to babysit the servers to keep them up during the day.

> and then most universities make money from deals with big companies
> to use their software designs, what will happen to that if they just
> release everything to GPL, ? I just read somewhere that they are
> less CS graduates every year, this will not help i in that.

If the University manages to get the developer to sign over the rights 
(e.g. "Do it or you don't graduate") then they could sell the product
to a big company without the GPL licensing restrictions, to do with as 
they wish.  OTOH, the GPL version could be worked on by other people
(who can refuse to change the copyright on their code, or assign it to 
the FSF which is much the same thing) and turn into something great,
like GIMP.

Haven't UCB and MIT historically released their code under *less*
restrictive licenses than the GPL?

> will the free software movement be the death of computing like we
> know it today ?

If computing today is MS (and IBM, etc.) I certainly hope so.

-- 
 Carey Evans  http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/c.evans/

"So, do you steal weapons from the Army often?"
"Well, we don't get cable, so we have to make our own fun."

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Matthew Wilcox 
Sven

> do you suggest the universities start selling debian cds to finance themself.

I don't see why not.  They have a captive market of near-penniless students
who would be willing to buy the CDs from them.  As long as they don't get
greedy, there's no incentive for the students to bother doing their own.

> like said, the true problem is not on selling CDs, but on using the product
> in their own product, without giving some of the benefits back to the
> people who made it.
> 
> this is ok for people who code the thing as part of their hobby, and don't
> need to live from it, but that coudl mean in the future most of the
> software will be written, by people doing IS management, and then writting
> freeware between two reboots of NT servers.
> 
> and then most universities make money from deals with big companies to
> use their software designs, what will happen to that if they just release
> everything to GPL, ? I just read somewhere that they are less CS graduates
> every year, this will not help in that. will the free software movement
> be the death of computing like we know it today ?

I don't think you've read one word of the FSF manifesto, the Debian Social
Contract or the works of Eric Raymond.  You also don't seem to understand
the purpose of this list is /not/ for flamewars about relative merits of
licence terms, but for introducing people to the Debian Packaging system.

debian-mentors
This list is for newbie maintainers who seek help with initial packaging
and other developer-related issues. Those who prefer one-on-one help
should also post to the list, and an experienced developer will volunteer.

If you must discuss this in the context of debian, then debian-policy is
the only even vaguely suitable list to do it on.  But even then, most
of what you seem interested in discussing has only one sensible forum,
and that is gnu.misc.discuss.

Now please, take this discussion elsewhere.

-- 
Set Alias$Case Set Alias$[  |MSet Alias$Otherwise Set Alias$[ \ Matthew
"" |MSet Alias$When If %0=%%0 Then Set Alias$[ "" ||MIf %0=%%0\ Wilcox
Then Set Alias$Otherwise Set Alias$[  ||MIf   \
%0=%%0 Then Set Alias$When Set Alias$[

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Tyson Dowd 
On 15-Sep-1998, Sven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > If you really want to get a cut of the profit, why not start
> selling CDs?
> 
> i am not speaking for myself, but i see that some people dont like
> this kind of thing, and in particular i am thinking about people
> developping software at universities. i don't think it is that they
> want a share for themself, but that theier university wants a share of
> it so as be able continuealy support the the peoples who develop said
> software.  do you suggest the universities start selling debian cds to
> finance themself.

I suggest the the universities grow up.  They are supposed to
be in existance to spread information, not hide it from the world
for profit.  This is what happens when bean counter start running
institutions instead of those interested in what the institution
stands for.  I have nothing but contempt for such intitutions (and
it is even worse when you consider that most of them were established
and are still subsidised for by public money).

Universities do not rely on licensing fees from software to hire people.
Often the software produced is a byproduct of other research, and is
useful to everyone in the field, and can advance the field.  This kind
of software should not be withheld from others in the same way that
research results themselves should be openly published.

If a research institution goes down the path of extreme proprietary dealings,
I believe they should have their rights to circumvent copyright
(researchers have special rights in copyright law) and their public
funding stripped from them and they should be treated like a
profit-making business.

> 
> also another concern for this peoples is the right to modification of
> the software, someone can take the software modify it and then sell
> it, without according credits to the true author, or giving some of
> the money back to it.

So?  Are they interested in money or research?  If they copyleft it
all they have to worry about is being cut out of the credits.

Copylefts tend to solve this problems, because the source
availablity of the copyleft makes sure people don't get too ridiculous
in charging for software, and that the source is available.

Butting someone out of the credits is rude, but it's hardly the end
of the world.  I find it hard to believe any researcher is so vain
they would stop people using their stuff because they are worried
that their name might be left off it.  If your name is in the copyright
notice it should be fine anyway, since you can't change that.

In practice it's very rare for it to happen.  Nobody seems to be
forgetting who Linus is, despite the fact the Linux kernel can be taken
and renamed and sold.

Admittedly, you are taking a gamble, but I think it's better than having
nobody use your software at all.

> 
> how can a university make a financing deal with a private company to
> exploit one of their product, if said company can just grab the source
> and develop it for themself.

Copyleft it.  If a company wants to exploit it (good choice of word)
they can pay big $$$ for a non-copyleft license.

Besides, usually you find the company wants the technology, and the
expertise involved.  If they could develop it themselves, they wouldn't
be trying to finance a university to do it for them.

> 
> in the current situation you cannot even say, you can use this
> productnbut you have to make a $5 donnation to debian :).

For some people $5 is a months wages.  Usually people in rich
circumstances make these schemes up, unintentionally depriving the
poor of a chance to use software.  Any scheme which forces a
payment will mean there are people who want to use it who will be cut
out.  Even a postcard or an email registration is a difficult task in
some places.

The idea is that these sorts of restrictions will always cause
problems in some situations.  If Debian disappears, you cannot send
$5 to them, hence you cannot use the software at all.

> 
> i think this kind of problem is not so much about the distribution
> vendors, altough some take a big share for the cds, hey redhat is 50$
> or such, but more the big companies, with big money, like microsoft,
> sony, ibm, ...

RedHat provides technical support, multiple CDs, printed manuals,
marketing, shelf space, pretty boxes, advertising, etc.
The $50 covers those costs, it is not too much.  And I dare say
RedHat supports free software by doing the best thing it can --
it hires developers and provides resources.

I have no problem with their $50 box, it's a good service.
I wouldn't buy it myself of course ;-)

If big companies start using Debian or any sort of Linux, that
will mean more jobs out their enhancing, customizing, supporting,
writing drivers for, distributing and writing about it.
Developers can benefit from all these jobs.  Many many Debian
developers are also consultants (on Debian).

With free software you do give up the luxury of getting paid a few
dollars royalty on every copy.  That day is

"Official CD" screwups (Was: Why only one non-free section?)

1998-09-15 Thread Joseph Carter 
On Mon, Sep 14, 1998 at 09:27:10AM -0400, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> >  Raul> But note that contrib is being packaged as an official part of 
> > Debian.
> > 
> > A small nit. It is being packaged on the official CD, but is
> >  not an official part of Debian. 
> 
> I have the LSL Ofiicial CD and it doesn't contain contrib.
> I had to buy a Gold CDR to get contrib on CD...

All right, I am REALLY becoming annoyed at seeing this.

Infomagic, Cheapbytes, and LSL have all managed to over the small course of
Debian history that I am personally aware of totally SCREW UP the Debian CDs
and call them "Official" anyway.  And it's just them that I know about! 
This is EXTREMELY frustrating.

To the vendors:  I know it was not your intention to screw up the CDs.  I
realize there is really no policy covering "official" CDs, so I'm not out to
get you or anything.  The mention of your names is not meant to say that you
are bad, but to reflect the severity of the need to do something about the
problem.  Please take no offense as none is intended.


It has come to my attention that we simply CANNOT allow vendors to build a
CD with whatever arbitrary structure they want and call it "Official"
Debian.  Too often, the CDs are published, sold, and then found to be
broken.  This NEEDS to be resolved before Debian makes one more release,
even if that release is just updates to the hamm (2.0) Debian release.

I see a few options at this time, some of them do not solve the problem.

1. We can ask the vendors to not refer to their CD-ROM distributions
   as "official" unless they are direct burns or presses of the
   official CD-ROM images available at cdimage.debian.org and
   mirrors.
2. We can leave things as they are now and hope users aren't too
   confused by the whole mess and/or the vendors do not make many of
   these mistakes they have done with hamm anymore.
3. We can allow the official images or any images made from the
   debian-cd package scripts to be called official.  If we do this,
   we should create debian-cd .tar.gz archives for non-debian
   machines.  If I recall correctly, these scripts are machine
   architecture independant (perl or make or something like that, I
   haven't looked recently) so we wouldn't have to deal with archs.
4. We can ask people to stop using "Official" in connection to
   Debian CDs at all.  Only the primary mirrors' contents would be
   considered official if we did this.
5. Don't let ANYONE call their image "Official" without sending a
   Debian developer CDs to test first.  Would any of the great
   hordes of us who aren't Johnnie or some of the others with Debian
   mirrors on our hard drives  care to volunteer?  I know I
   certainly would.
6. Write a specification of what makes a CD image "official" and
   what is expected to be on the CDs and where.  On one hand we have
   to rely on someone reading this file, but on the other this
   allows the vendors to place little blurbs on the CD.  Note there
   should also be explanation of what can NOT be on Official CDs,
   non-free software for example.  We might point out that it is
   acceptable for them to include redistributable non-free packages
   on additional CD(s) if they choose to bundle with Official
   Debian, or that they can make unofficial/custom dists.
7. We can find some company who would like to bundle printed
   documentation with Debian Official images in a shrinkwrap box and
   call that Official.  This would be good, but it would imply that
   only this commercial distribution of Debian is official.  That
   would clearly be bad as most will agree.


I want opinions, additional creative ideas, discussion of the ideas I've
brought up, or anything else people have to offer.  And not just from
developers either.  I'd like to hear from users, vendors, and anyone else
who cares to comment, it doesn't matter as long as we come to some kind of
solution to what really seems to be a problem to me at least.


pgpkP1nfueiRW.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Sven 
> > Now please, take this discussion elsewhere.

sorry i got lost, there was a similar thread elsewhere, and i folowoed this one 
without looking at the mailing list it is sent to. 

and yes i read everything you mentioned.

But does it take in account the non US situation also ?

Friendmly,

Sven LUTHER

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Stephane Bortzmeyer 
On Monday 14 September 1998, at 16 h 5, the keyboard of Sven 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> what if i release a software under some kind of DFSG compliant license. 
> someone
> can simply come and sell the stuff. making profit from it, but never giving 
> some of it back to the author or the Free software community.

Yes, that's freedom. Freedom means (among others) freedom to be selfish. For 
instance, I have the freedom to give money or not to the FSF or to SPI or to 
Greenpeace or to Amnesty International. I don't have the freedom to pay my 
taxes or not (only an indirect freedom, through elections of the parliament).

> do we really need that some people make money of the free software for it to 
> be successful ?

Yes. Otherwise, who will press the CDROMs we need for people not connected to 
an high-speed research network like Renater we use both of us? Who will do the 
boring job of pressing CDROMs, putting them in an envelope and posting them?

Re: Why only one non-free section?

1998-09-15 Thread Stephane Bortzmeyer 
On Tuesday 15 September 1998, at 8 h 53, the keyboard of Sven 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> also another concern for this peoples is the right to modification 
> of the software, someone can take the software modify it and then sell it, 
> without according credits to the true author,
  
  This is not possible, even under the very relaxed BSD licence, not even 
speaking of the GPL.

> or giving some of the money back to it.

Correct. If you *require* money for your software, it is no longer free.

> how can a university make a financing deal with a private company to exploit 
> one of their product, if said company can just grab the source and develop it 
> f
> or themself.

The University can provide (for a fee), help, support, etc to the company. 

[BTW, these are really *basic* problems of free software. In France, see the 
newsgroup fr.comp.applications.libres for instance.]

Re: "Official CD" screwups (Was: Why only one non-free section?)

1998-09-15 Thread Stephen J. Carpenter 
On Tue, Sep 15, 1998 at 05:14:16AM +, Joseph Carter wrote:
> All right, I am REALLY becoming annoyed at seeing this.
> 
> Infomagic, Cheapbytes, and LSL have all managed to over the small course of
> Debian history that I am personally aware of totally SCREW UP the Debian CDs
> and call them "Official" anyway.  And it's just them that I know about! 
> This is EXTREMELY frustrating.

Just curious (I just purchased the cheapbytes Mondo Linux pack with a debian
2.0 CD ) how Cheapbytes screwed it up? (I havn't had time ot look at it.)

> It has come to my attention that we simply CANNOT allow vendors to build a
> CD with whatever arbitrary structure they want and call it "Official"
> Debian.

definitly agreed.

> I see a few options at this time, some of them do not solve the problem.
> 
>   1. We can ask the vendors to not refer to their CD-ROM distributions
>  as "official" unless they are direct burns or presses of the
>  official CD-ROM images available at cdimage.debian.org and
>  mirrors.
>   5. Don't let ANYONE call their image "Official" without sending a
>  Debian developer CDs to test first.  Would any of the great
>  hordes of us who aren't Johnnie or some of the others with Debian
>  mirrors on our hard drives  care to volunteer?  I know I
>  certainly would.

Why not combine these? How about an "Offical CD" is one of the following:
A) A burn of the CD Image from the offcial FTP sites which is marked as
Offical.
B) An Image Aproved as Offical by a Debian Developer. Then maintain a list of
developers willing to check out and test CDs. Maybe setup an Offical system
for Vendors to submit requests to so that we know and to alert those developers
who wish to do this work. (I would be willing to do it)

Maybe just to be anal about it we should save a copy of an MD5 checksum
of the CD Image direct from the CD...Which is in turn PGP (or gpg) signed
by the developer who aproved it.

>   6. Write a specification of what makes a CD image "official" and
>  what is expected to be on the CDs and where.  On one hand we have
>  to rely on someone reading this file, but on the other this
>  allows the vendors to place little blurbs on the CD.  Note there
>  should also be explanation of what can NOT be on Official CDs,
>  non-free software for example.  We might point out that it is
>  acceptable for them to include redistributable non-free packages
>  on additional CD(s) if they choose to bundle with Official
>  Debian, or that they can make unofficial/custom dists.

I think this should be done in addition to the above. This will let Vendors 
know "Whats up" when creating their CDs before getting aproval (this would
make it a bit easier for aprovers). Maybe some script could be made up to
do some verification? (ie check sym links /directory structure, make sure
Packages.gz exists etc)

Also...Should it be ok to do this:
"This CD Contains Debian X.X Offical AND " Then put Debian on the CD
under Debian-X.X. Then put other things (like Non-free etc) on the CD
as long as they are not under the debian offical directory structure?

(of course with the size of these things lately its unlikely much elese will
fit on a CD soon...)

> I want opinions, additional creative ideas, discussion of the ideas I've
> brought up, or anything else people have to offer.  And not just from
> developers either.  I'd like to hear from users, vendors, and anyone else
> who cares to comment, it doesn't matter as long as we come to some kind of
> solution to what really seems to be a problem to me at least.

See above :)

-Steve

-- 
/* -- Stephen Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
*/
E-mail "Bumper Stickers":
"A FREE America or a Drug-Free America: You can't have both!"
"honk if you Love Linux"

Re: "Official CD" screwups (Was: Why only one non-free section?)

1998-09-15 Thread Peter S Galbraith 


> > I have the LSL Official CD and it doesn't contain contrib.
> > I had to buy a Gold CDR to get contrib on CD...

Joseph Carter wrote:
 
>   1. We can ask the vendors to not refer to their CD-ROM distributions
>  as "official" unless they are direct burns or presses of the
>  official CD-ROM images available at cdimage.debian.org and
>  mirrors.

If the Debian web site had a better description of the directory structure
an official CD should have, it would help.  Then I could easily compare the
CD I purchased to the web site.  I didn't even know that an official CD
should include `contrib' before I ordered hamm.  


Side note:

On my CDs: contrib is 200MB
   binary-i386 + binary-all + disks-i386 is 594 MB
   source is 617 MB
   
  total:   1411 MB

This does not fit on two CDs, so I can't see how this is possible.

My i386 binary CD looks like (edited output of `du`):

 boot
 debian/dists
 debian/doc/FAQ
 debian/doc/package-developer
 debian/hamm/hamm/binary-all/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/hamm/binary-i386/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/hamm/disks-i386/2.0.10_1998-07-21
 debian/tools
 install
 tools/fips15
 tools/fips15c
 tools/lodlin16/debian
 tools/lodlin16/doc
 tools/lodlin16
 tools/rawrite1
 tools/rawrite2
 tools
 upgrade

My contrib CD looks like:

 debian/doc/FAQ
 debian/doc/package-developer
 debian/hamm/contrib/binary-all/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/contrib/binary-alpha/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/contrib/binary-i386/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/contrib/binary-m68k/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/contrib/source/
{admin base comm devel doc editors electronics games graphics hamradio
 interpreters libs mail math misc net news oldlibs otherosfs shells
 sound tex text utils web x11}
 debian/hamm/hamm/source/x11
 
-- 
Peter Galbraith, research scientist  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 1000, Mont-Joli Qc, G5H 3Z4 Canada. 418-775-0852 FAX: 775-0546
   6623'rd Linux user at the Linux Counter -- http://counter.li.org/

using packages in slink

1998-09-15 Thread tony mancill 
Hopefully this question isn't too dense, but I'm interested in seeing how
others handle this problem.  I pointed my hamm system at an ftp server
carrying slink and updated my package list.  Now dselect wants me to
update about 80MB of software on my system.  This is ok, I guess, but I
happened to notice that one of the packages was libstdc++ 2.9.  If I load
this and then build my package (wanpipe, which has one executable which
links against this), isn't that basically forcing everyone who wants to
use wanpipe to start using slink instead of stable?

On a related note, I'm still completely in the dark about how packages
migrate through the different sub-distributions within a release.  i.e.
should everything I upload to master be classified as "unstable"?  And
when/how/by which criteria will it move to "slink" and then maybe to
"stable"?

Sorry once again if these aren't rocket science.  I've been using Debian
since 1.1 in production and have never used anything except "stable".  Now
that I'm maintaining a package, I want to be using the latest revision,
but don't see a way of doing that outside of placing that package in my
dists/stable/local directory on my company's internal mirror.  I'd also
like to understand better what makes up a (point) release and how we can
help those who are working on it.  (i.e. upload revs early and often, or
try to keep uploads to a minimum while the package slowly ripens in my own
test environment...)

Thanks,
tony

--
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a _real_ operating system."|  
   (Dilbert)   | (real life)