On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 03:44:30PM +0000, Jeremy Stanley wrote: > On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 09:15:42AM +0200, Fabian Greffrath wrote: > [...] > > I suggest that, if such a repository will be created for patented > > codecs, that e.g. sponsored uploads will not be allowed to this > > archive. I know that most of you will hate this idea, but I > > believe it is necessary to keep the original purpose of such an > > archive. > > As a sponsoree myself, I'm not entirely certain I understand why > it's any more likely that a sponsoring DD will overlook and upload a > package with the wrong section, than that a DD will upload a > similarly incorrect package he or she directly maintains. And either > way, wouldn't verifying that a package is appropriate for some new > patent-problems section fall on the ftpmasters and their delegates > to police? And further, if this became canonized in policy as a must > or required directive, wouldn't such a problem warrant a bug of > severity serious, potentially release-critical even?
Here's an idea. Would it be useful to translate the legal issues of a package into a technical one by marking packages with one of these package tags: ------------- Patent_issue: yes/no Patent_issue: de,us,... ------------- Thus whoever uploads it, it will be followed more closely and similary would such a tag be useful to aptitude/dpkg so as to signal upgrades that may contain patent or similar issues. I would expect the user to set a location setting in dpkg so that the messages would be a warning in certain locales and informational in others. This of course then leads to who will make the determination? (-legal,ftpmasters,DD) There is also P-A-S which is not maintained by DD but my ftpmaster,iirc. This may be a similar situation. And the issues of how often it will be reviewed to keep up with legal issues? And since all distros have these issues, maybe a joint effort to maintain a legal issue list. -K -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keyserver: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | |join the new debian-community.org to help Debian! | |_______ Unless I ask to be CCd, assume I am subscribed _______| -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]