Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 07:44:08PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place). Yes, I still disagree with this reasoning. People of conscience may disagree on whether *preventing* the creation of files that can't be read with free software is serving the goals of the DFSG. In the absence of agreement on this point, I don't think it's right to treat this as a release-critical bug unless the *maintainer* agrees with you. That suggests if the maintainer disagrees in, say, DFSG #1 (Debian will remain 100% free), then we don't have to treat as release-critical an inclussion of non-free in main. I think I'll try to expose better my point, and also move it to -legal. DFSG #4 states: We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. I think it's very clear that the free software community is harmed by promoting trap formats like RAR, so I won't extend on that. For what the needs of our users are concerned, we have basicaly two groups of users with opposed needs: 1- A group of users who want to use rar to produce archives. 2- A group of users who want to extract rar archives produced by the first one. Reasons why I think the latter group is much bigger than the first: - In case user in group #1 is using RAR for private backups/etc, the technical disadvantages of using RAR instead of a combination of tar (better integration with Un*x file metadata) and p7zip (better compression) indicate this is a minority of users. - In case user in group #1 is using RAR for distributing data across the internet, then for each user doing this, it's logical to expect more than one user in group #2 will recieve the file and want to extract it. - In popcon, unrar is roughly 5/4 times more popular than rar. Although this info should be taken with a grain of salt, because many users install rar with the sole purpose of extracting, or simply because it's in Suggests in the packages that are object of this discussion. Therefore I don't think we're serving the interests of our users or the free software community first in our priorities. -- Robert Millan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
Package: ark Severity: serious Justification: DFSG #4 This package has a Suggests: rar tag. If it has the functionality to create rar archives via rar, this is a serious problem, because it is encouraging users to create trap archives that can't be extracted with free software. I believe this is a violation of DFSG #4 (Our priorities are our users and free software) since we put: - A minority of our users (those who use rar to publish data). before: - The majority of our users (who can't extract the data in a pure Debian system). - The free software community, for which trap archive formats are seriously detrimental. OTOH, if this package is only using rar to extract these archives, then it'd be better to use the unrar package instead (in that case severity of this bug should be lowered). -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-1-k7 Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
severity 340704 important severity 340705 important severity 340706 important severity 340707 important thanks Hi Robert, Sorry, I have to disagree with these bug severities; Suggests: are just not important enough in our packaging system to treat them as release-critical, regardless of what's being suggested, and it is generally considered acceptable to Suggest: non-free packages from main anyway. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 02:41:49AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: Sorry, I have to disagree with these bug severities; Suggests: are just not important enough in our packaging system to treat them as release-critical, regardless of what's being suggested, Hi Steve, My concern is about the rar writing support itself, not about Suggests. The Suggests tag is just an indication that either the application supports generating rar archives (or that there's a mistake, and the maintainer just mean to suggest unrar instead). and it is generally considered acceptable to Suggest: non-free packages from main anyway. Well, that's not the problem. If the application needs unrar to extract rar archives, then suggesting unrar is ok [1]. It's the fact that the application supports creating rar archives that I believe violates the DFSG. Does this explanation satisfy you? If it does, I'd like to rise the severity back to serious (I don't think it's an issue for the release, being only 4 bugs). OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place). Thanks! [1] In fact, unrar is one of the two non-free packages whose distribution by Debian I would personaly endorse. -- Robert Millan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
* Robert Millan [Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:34:23 +0100]: Well, that's not the problem. If the application needs unrar to extract rar archives, then suggesting unrar is ok [1]. It's the fact that the application supports creating rar archives that I believe violates the DFSG. Does this explanation satisfy you? If it does, I'd like to rise the severity back to serious (I don't think it's an issue for the release, being only 4 bugs). OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place). Oh dear. Are you going to suggest that we move OpenOffice.org out of main 'cause it can be used to create Microsoft Word files? No em fotis. -- Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es Debian Developer adeodato at debian.org We learned that the Linux load average rolls over at 1024. And we actually found this out empirically. -- H. Peter Anvin from kernel.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 01:57:17PM +0100, Adeodato Sim?? wrote: * Robert Millan [Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:34:23 +0100]: Well, that's not the problem. If the application needs unrar to extract rar archives, then suggesting unrar is ok [1]. It's the fact that the application supports creating rar archives that I believe violates the DFSG. Does this explanation satisfy you? If it does, I'd like to rise the severity back to serious (I don't think it's an issue for the release, being only 4 bugs). OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place). Oh dear. Are you going to suggest that we move OpenOffice.org out of main 'cause it can be used to create Microsoft Word files? No. Any of the files created by OOo can be opened with free software (notably, with OOo itself), so they're not a trap. A valid analogy would be like: - In the future, we have a package of MS-Office in non-free (MS allowed us to re-distribute it, etc) - Users can create some new trap format with it (not unlikely, e.g. [1]) - Such format can't be opened with free software. Thus: - We'd be doing a bad service to most of our users, who use OOo/etc - We'd be harming the free software community as a whole. (both of these are infractions of DFSG #4 IMHO) [1] There are also reports that Microsoft is planning to use patented extensions to XML as the basis for a future Word format; anyone who implements free software to read those files could be sued for patent infringement by Microsoft. from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html -- Robert Millan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#340704: rar support violates DFSG #4
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 01:34:23PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote: On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 02:41:49AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: Sorry, I have to disagree with these bug severities; Suggests: are just not important enough in our packaging system to treat them as release-critical, regardless of what's being suggested, My concern is about the rar writing support itself, not about Suggests. The Suggests tag is just an indication that either the application supports generating rar archives (or that there's a mistake, and the maintainer just mean to suggest unrar instead). and it is generally considered acceptable to Suggest: non-free packages from main anyway. Well, that's not the problem. If the application needs unrar to extract rar archives, then suggesting unrar is ok [1]. It's the fact that the application supports creating rar archives that I believe violates the DFSG. Does this explanation satisfy you? If it does, I'd like to rise the severity back to serious (I don't think it's an issue for the release, being only 4 bugs). OTOH, if you think my interpretation of DFSG is inadequate, I could try to expose it better, and we could also move this to -legal (perhaps I should have started there in first place). Yes, I still disagree with this reasoning. People of conscience may disagree on whether *preventing* the creation of files that can't be read with free software is serving the goals of the DFSG. In the absence of agreement on this point, I don't think it's right to treat this as a release-critical bug unless the *maintainer* agrees with you. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
