Leonard den Ottolander (leonard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) said:
I don't know that there was ever a firm decision as in a vote was taken or some dictator laid down the law. I just remember someone suggesting this approach and I said "that sounds good to me" when asked, and I don't know if it went anywhere.
I also falsely interpreted your reaction as being a confirmation of adopted policy.
How do the Red Hat developers perceive this issue? Is the "intersection between OSI and FSF" approach a good enough compromise for you?
It's probably more-or-less mirrors the policy now. Certainly a pine package that we could only apply official security patches (and where other patches would be by negotiation) doesn't really fit the definition of what we'd normally consider.
Moreover, we'd want whoever takes the stuff from Fedora Core to be able to redistribute and rebuild as well (of course, you have to watch trademark issues here.)
Bill
I notice that Bill said "Fedora Core" in the last paragraph. I personally have the opinion that if we can get away with it legally, pragmatism takes precedent to principles. But then again I also believe much of the Debian social contract stuff is a complete waste of time, and not conducive to our ability to eventually triumph over the proprietary forces.
http://macromedia.mplug.org/
One example of where pragmatism is more important than principles is this closed source abomination. We clearly would be far worse off today in end-user desktop viability without this software. This is not a matter open to debate with me. For the moment I believe:
The enemy of our enemy is our friend, for today at least.
This being said, unless legal tells me otherwise, I personally wish to accept anything in Extras that is not legally risky (as well as technically sound, etc.) I care less about redistribution rights. That is their problem, not ours.
I do agree that Fedora Core should always be 100% Open Source. I also believe that Extras need not be this strict. If you dislike some part of Extras, then just don't use it.
https://bugzilla.fedora.us/show_bug.cgi?id=1457
On a somewhat related matter, if you feel restricted by pine's lack of "Freedom", then give the new cone package a try. I am very impressed by what I see with cone, and it is Open Source Software, unlike pine. It should be published in Extras stable real soon now.
Warren Togami wtogami@xxxxxxxxxx
