Benjamin Scott <dragonh...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 11:08 AM, Joshua Judson Rosen
> <roz...@geekspace.com> wrote:
> > > The Debian package downloads and runs an executable installer.
> > > d-m.org offered a proper packaging of the installed files.
> >
> > I'd go for that, but... is that even *legal*? In the USA?
>
> IANAL, but I believe that's an open question. It prolly doesn't
> comply with the license document, but license documents do not have
> the force of law (much to the dislike of software publishers
> everywhere). I haven't agreed to the terms of the license.
Well, it's a license, not a contract. So it..., er, `grants you license'
to do things--like distribute. Of course, you're not the one distributing,
so whatever. I was looking at it more from the perspective of the people
who *are* or *would be* distributing--namely d-m and Debian, respectively.
I asked, "In the USA?", because debian-multimedia.org is registered
to someone in France, and Debian no longer has their "non-us" section
to work around bugs/misfeatures in the US legal system.
I'm just thinking, it makes sense to me that Debian does it
the way that they do (it's expensive enough just to get sued
even if you're going to end up winning, and I don't anything
to indicate that they would), and I'm surprised to see d-m doing
it their (his?) way. Hopefully d-m doesn't get `ICEd' at some point:
http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/11/28/authoritarian-update/
> As far as copyright goes, similar things have been considered "fair
> use" by US courts in the past. It would have to go to court to
> decide,
If you mean from your perspective as a user, I think I get what you mean
(DJB was really big on that, as I recall--which was *one of* the reasons
that it was such a PITA to use his software...).
> > ... it extracts the .so from the tarball ...
>
> Okay, so it's ripping the files from Adobe's executable installer
> kit, rather than running same.
It's really just downloading and unpacking a tarball, and the only file
in the tarball is libflashplayer.so, so I'm not sure what there is to `run'.
But...:
> All my individually enumerated complaints still apply in full.
Yeah--I get your issue, now: which isn't so much an issue
with how it's packaged or the trustworthiness of the source
so much as that Debian's just not pushing out regular upgrades
whenever upstream does (which actually seems to fit with their
policies...).
And while "aptitude download flashplugin-nonfree" (or whatever d-m
calls it) will get you the package-file and allow you to install
it with `dpkg --force-depends', it seems like you're right:
you won't be able to have it just get upgraded automatically
until d-m fixes their archive, and you're hosed in the interim.
The only work-around I know to suggest is to just install
the package from lenny-backports and regularly update it
by running "update-flashplugin-nonfree --install",
maybe in a cron job or something (if there's a new version,
it'll get it; if there isn't, it should be a no-op);
there may be some sort of hook in APT that you can use
to make it run that command for you at the end of every
"upgrade" or "dist-upgrade" cycle, but I don't know.
Personally, I decided to follow your advice on handling
people who don't want you to work with them. Of coure, it helped
that, in this particular case, the thing never really provided me
with anything I needed, so I had only the problems to be rid of :)
--
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."
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