Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Russ Allbery]

Jon Dowland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> It seems every other semi-controversial ITP gets an obligatory "why
> package this when we have X,Y,Z instead?" reply, although seemingly
> never from an ftp-master or mirror maintainer or anyone else who is
> actually impacted by archive sizes :-(

Consider it an expression of increasing resistance designed to make people
think twice.  I think it's useful even when not enforced.  If one is
convinced that the package is needed, one can always go ahead anyway, but
the resistance provides useful feedback and sometimes identifies packages
that are really unnecessary for reasons that the prospective packager
didn't realize.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED])   



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Josselin Mouette]

Le jeudi 11 octobre 2007 à 15:01 +0100, Jon Dowland a écrit :
> It seems every other semi-controversial ITP gets an obligatory "why
> package this when we have X,Y,Z instead?" reply, although seemingly
> never from an ftp-master or mirror maintainer or anyone else who is
> actually impacted by archive sizes :-(

Archive size not so much a concern as archive *quality*. There is
trouble maintaining the quality level reasonable for each packages when
there are so many packages.

-- 
 .''`.
: :' :  We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code.
`. `'   We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to
  `-our own. Resistance is futile.


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Jon Dowland]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
> non-free.

Firstly, as it is non-free, it isn't really going "into Debian".
Secondly, if someone wants to package it, and other people use it, why
shouldn't it?

It seems every other semi-controversial ITP gets an obligatory "why
package this when we have X,Y,Z instead?" reply, although seemingly
never from an ftp-master or mirror maintainer or anyone else who is
actually impacted by archive sizes :-(

-- 
Jon Dowland



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Steve Greenland]

On 08-Oct-07, 16:15 (CDT), "Steinar H. Gunderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. S??nchez wrote:
> > Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> > for Debian, what is the point of adding another?
> 
> I don't see the relevance of this argument, really, but if you really think
> it's a problem: What if someone needed to access an existing Perforce
> repository?

They could download and install the client from Perforce?

Steve

-- 
Steve Greenland
The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the
world.   -- seen on the net



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Florian Weimer]

* Pierre Habouzit:

>> (I don't know anything about Perforce.  Perhaps it's really dangerous
>> software.  But perhaps it's just non-free.)
>
>   OTOH I'm always reluctant to see new things enter non-free when there
> is perfectly suitable alternatives. I mean git, hg, bzr, or even the
> horrible svn can do what p4 does, or even way better.

Neither of them speaks the Perforce protocol.

>   But I understand that you don't always chose the tools you have to use
> at work.

There are a some free software projects that use Perforce.



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 11:15:38PM +0200, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> > Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> > for Debian, what is the point of adding another?
> 
> I don't see the relevance of this argument, really, but if you really think
> it's a problem: What if someone needed to access an existing Perforce
> repository?
> 
I did not realize that this was only for the client.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Steinar H. Gunderson]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> for Debian, what is the point of adding another?

I don't see the relevance of this argument, really, but if you really think
it's a problem: What if someone needed to access an existing Perforce
repository?

/* Steinar */
-- 
Homepage: http://www.sesse.net/



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Tyler MacDonald]

Sam Clegg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Perforce is an absolutely *excellent* VCS with the unfortunate
> > distinction of being proprietary. SubVersion can do most (but not all) of
> > what it does, albeit 10 times slower. Still, I've migrated all of my stuff
> > over to subversion, because, well, subversion is free. Perforce is free (as
> > in "free beer") for open source developers, if you want more than 2 users on
> > one VCS server, you have to sign a contract, get a license, give the
> > perforce people full access to your repo, sign a new contract whenever you
> > server's IP address changes, and renew each year
> Slightly off topic, but you don't need to give the perforce people
> access to you repo (unless you really want them to come in a fix
> something) and you don't need to renew each year (unless you want
> support from them).

  You don't need to go through all of that if you buy the product. If you
get a free open source developmnet license, they want you to renew every
year, and they want an account on your server so they can make sure you've
only got open source code on there.

- Tyler




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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Sam Clegg]

On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 05:41 +0300, Faidon Liambotis wrote:
> Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
> >> Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> >> for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
> >> non-free.
> > 
> > How about "people use it"?  There's plenty of installations of
> > perforce; I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
> > within the mandate for non-free.
> I'd say upload only the client to non-free.
> 
> We should provide users a way to use their existent preforce servers but
> we should not encourage new installations of perforce.
> 
> Sounds like a compromise to me :)

Indeed, my primary aim was to make it easy for anyone wanting to run
debian in an org that uses perforce (i.e. people like myself).

I agree the server package is of less use in this respect, its simply
there to make it easy for people to choose debian on the server side as
well.  Pending the legal conclusions I'll upload just the client package
initially.


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Sam Clegg]

On Mon, 2007-10-08 at 14:42 -0700, Tyler MacDonald wrote:
> Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Seems to me that this depends on Perforce.  D'oh.
> > 
> > (I don't know anything about Perforce.  Perhaps it's really dangerous
> > software.  But perhaps it's just non-free.)
> 
>   Perforce is an absolutely *excellent* VCS with the unfortunate
> distinction of being proprietary. SubVersion can do most (but not all) of
> what it does, albeit 10 times slower. Still, I've migrated all of my stuff
> over to subversion, because, well, subversion is free. Perforce is free (as
> in "free beer") for open source developers, if you want more than 2 users on
> one VCS server, you have to sign a contract, get a license, give the
> perforce people full access to your repo, sign a new contract whenever you
> server's IP address changes, and renew each year


Slightly off topic, but you don't need to give the perforce people
access to you repo (unless you really want them to come in a fix
something) and you don't need to renew each year (unless you want
support from them).



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Faidon Liambotis]

Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
>> Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
>> for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
>> non-free.
> 
> How about "people use it"?  There's plenty of installations of
> perforce; I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
> within the mandate for non-free.
I'd say upload only the client to non-free.

We should provide users a way to use their existent preforce servers but
we should not encourage new installations of perforce.

Sounds like a compromise to me :)

Regards,
Faidon



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 09:32:23PM +, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Pierre Habouzit:
> >> I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
> >> within the mandate for non-free.
> >
> >   There is ways to interact with perforce in debian, in a free way:
> > git-p4 being one of them.
> | * The import does not require anything from the Perforce client view as
> |   it just uses
> |   "p4 print //depot/path/file#revision" to get the actual file contents.
> 
> Seems to me that this depends on Perforce.  D'oh.

  heh okay :)

> (I don't know anything about Perforce.  Perhaps it's really dangerous
> software.  But perhaps it's just non-free.)

  OTOH I'm always reluctant to see new things enter non-free when there
is perfectly suitable alternatives. I mean git, hg, bzr, or even the
horrible svn can do what p4 does, or even way better.

  But I understand that you don't always chose the tools you have to use
at work.

-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Tyler MacDonald]

Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Seems to me that this depends on Perforce.  D'oh.
> 
> (I don't know anything about Perforce.  Perhaps it's really dangerous
> software.  But perhaps it's just non-free.)

Perforce is an absolutely *excellent* VCS with the unfortunate
distinction of being proprietary. SubVersion can do most (but not all) of
what it does, albeit 10 times slower. Still, I've migrated all of my stuff
over to subversion, because, well, subversion is free. Perforce is free (as
in "free beer") for open source developers, if you want more than 2 users on
one VCS server, you have to sign a contract, get a license, give the
perforce people full access to your repo, sign a new contract whenever you
server's IP address changes, and renew each year

- Tyler




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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Florian Weimer]

* Pierre Habouzit:

>> How about "people use it"?  There's plenty of installations of
>> perforce;
>
>   s/perforce/windows/ and the sentence is still true ;)

The Windows copyright is pretty restrictive AFAIK.  If it weren't, I'm
certain we hould ship things like Virtualbox VMs in non-free because
there is real demand.

And your Microsoft reference is *so* 90s. 8-)

>> I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
>> within the mandate for non-free.
>
>   There is ways to interact with perforce in debian, in a free way:
> git-p4 being one of them.

| * The import does not require anything from the Perforce client view as
|   it just uses
|   "p4 print //depot/path/file#revision" to get the actual file contents.

Seems to me that this depends on Perforce.  D'oh.

(I don't know anything about Perforce.  Perhaps it's really dangerous
software.  But perhaps it's just non-free.)



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Pierre Habouzit]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 07:52:55PM +, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
> > Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> > for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
> > non-free.
> 
> How about "people use it"?  There's plenty of installations of
> perforce;

  s/perforce/windows/ and the sentence is still true ;)

> I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
> within the mandate for non-free.

  There is ways to interact with perforce in debian, in a free way:
git-p4 being one of them.

-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 03:41:21PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
> Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
> for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
> non-free.

How about "people use it"?  There's plenty of installations of
perforce; I think making it easier to use Debian with them is
within the mandate for non-free.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery



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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 07:30:09PM +0100, Sam Clegg wrote:
> Package: wnpp
> Severity: wishlist
> Owner: Sam Clegg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> 
> * Package name: perforce
>   Version : 2007.2-2
>   Upstream Author : Perforce Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> * URL : http://www.perforce.com/
> * License : proprietary
>   Programming Lang: binary only (with bindings in Perl, Python, etc.)
>   Description : closed source revision control system
> 
Given the great abundance of revision control systems already packaged
for Debian, what is the point of adding another?  Especially when it is
non-free.

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Bug#445866: ITP: perforce -- closed source revision control system

[Sam Clegg]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Sam Clegg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


* Package name: perforce
  Version : 2007.2-2
  Upstream Author : Perforce Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* URL : http://www.perforce.com/
* License : proprietary
  Programming Lang: binary only (with bindings in Perl, Python, etc.)
  Description : closed source revision control system

  closed source, centralised source control system akin to CVS and
  subversion.  You'll need a license to run a server with more
  than two users.  Free licenses are granted to open source
  projects.

  I'm in talks with perforce to get explicit permission to
  distribute in non-free.  Current license discussions are here:

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/09/msg00184.html

  My packages are here:

  http://superduper.net/downloads/debian/

  I've created two packages: 'perforce' for the
  client and 'perforce-server' for the server.  The
  'perforce-server' package is a 'fat' package that contains
  many server binaries (since the users license if normally
  limited to a given version).  The server package contains
  debian-friendly init scripts, etc.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash



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