Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 13/10/2010 04:04, Tux99 a écrit : Regardless of all that, it is ALWAYS the user's (not the distro makers) responsibility to comply with local laws of where the distro is being installed/used In fact, if you make a distro law compliant with all countries and tell that to users, you can open the way to this case : The user can claim that he was in confidence to apply the law of his ABC country (US for example ;-) ) because he used Mageia ... As Mageia had claimed it was compliant with all laws ... therefore it was compliant with the law of it's country ABC. If Mageia make a mistake in it's law compliancy ... it take a risk, and the association take a risk ... and the developpers of Mageia taking a risk of a pursuit in the country ABC. So ... a good reason to choice to not be compliant will all law, but only 1 law well understood by the association. After, a local Mageia-ABC-association can tell wich package replace for compliancy with ABC law ...
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 06:50, Marc Paré m...@marcpare.com wrote: Let the user then assume that responsibility/liability. This is where, I consider the easy urpmi served its purpose well. It installed repos where the available software that most users would need was made available, but this again was by user choice. I don't really see how this would fix the issue; by using a third-party repository (plf or through easy urpmi) you just move the concerns to another provider: - if the user is liable anyway, having a single or several providers doesn't matter; - if the user is not liable anyway, having several providers only moves the liability from one provider to the other one. This particular point, about _patented_ software is a tricky one indeed. Dealing with local/international laws is tricky. Especially when both change over time. However, first point is not to mix different issues here: - supported software and not-supported (and what means supported) - free vs. non-free/proprietary software (as in FSF/OSI definitions) - gratis vs. paid software - for non-free software, distribution/usage cases may be tricky (skype, opera for instance) - software implementation/distribution that violates/have to comply specific laws (encryption, DRMs) - for patented software/methods, implementation/distribution/usage cases are tricky as well (a patent may or may not block you from using the method, depends on who holds the patent and for what purpose). - maybe more with more details; Anssi pretty much defined categories in his first message here. We definitely can't say bluntly let's ignore all laws because we can't enforce them all. We must define our policies for what goes in Mageia repositories, what stays out, what goes out (and why). These policies must align with (and be part of) Mageia values and direction. Cheers, Romain
Re: [Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?
Fernando Parra wrote: (Finally, it would not be as strict versions of certain components. If, for example morning out mageia 2010 (for instance) and the day after Firefox 4.0 comes out, you do not run the 3.6.x version with all the time,) That's very clear, these users are trying to say: We want a different model, but we want a stable distro As we have been saying over and over again, this only indicates zero knowledge of backports repositories. We should publicize more Backports. Salut, Sinner
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
On 13 October 2010 15:34, Olivier Méjean omej...@yahoo.fr wrote: Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 10:19:17, Buchan Milne a écrit : On Tuesday, 12 October 2010 17:52:58 Tux99 wrote: Quote: marc wrote on Tue, 12 October 2010 18:42 Unfortunately, if this is done, I will no longer be able to install legally any Mageia due to our laws. I think it is best if these are not installed but let users know where to get them, mostly through PLF. How do you expect Mageia to verify each single package to make sure it complies with the laws in ALL countries of the world? So, because we can't comply with all laws in all coutnries, we should violate everyone we possibly can? Because we can't be aware of all laws in all countries, we should do nothing ? (after all that's the best way to break no law at all !) Mageia should make sure that the packages comply with French law, but that's it. If Mageia wants mirrors in countries with strong IP protection laws (including copyright, software patent) and anti-circumvention laws, then IMHO, there does need to be a split, so mirror maintainers can decide which risks they can accept. For example, in the DMCA case, I believe US mirrors hosting libdvdcss could be vulnerable. There are mirrors of plf in USA, there is at least one mirror of ArchLinux in USA that provides libdvdcss, there is at least one mirror of Linux Mint in the USA that provides libdvdcss, there is PCLinuxOS based in USA (Texas ?) that provides libdvdcss VLC is available in USA to download (cnet.com) and VLC provides its own lib for decoding (and coding) multimedia files (and from what i know, windows binaries come with libdvdcss) There's a difference between they can't be sued out of their homes and they can be sued, just no one's done it yet. As with any legal issues, it's always a CYA situation. You can still install Mageia and then remove the packages that are problematic in your country, I very much doubt your laws are that draconian that you can't even do that. Mageia could include an option during install to exclude the well-known problematic packages from installation to make this easier for people that live in countries with restrictive laws. When I install Mandriva Free for people, I will let them know where the PLF repos are and the files needed and they install these themselves. This is a major hassle for new/inexperienced users and IMHO should be avoided. Maybe it can be improved *to some extent*, by asking the user if they want to add additional repositories. We cannot ask users to add third-part repos. We have discussing about Mageia repos, policies of third-part repos should not be in our discussion. If we want to ask users to add 3rd party repos, then 3rd party repos are already a part of this discussion. -- Ahmad Samir
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
On 13 October 2010 16:29, Olivier Méjean omej...@yahoo.fr wrote: So companies, universities in USA provide softwares that we are here discussing if we can ship or not (and i don't want to insist, but Mageia.org is not located in USA). Maybe they are more aware of laws than we are, or are they taking too much risks ? They obviously are not aware of such issues.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Romain d'Alverny a écrit : On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 06:50, Marc Parém...@marcpare.com wrote: Let the user then assume that responsibility/liability. This is where, I consider the easy urpmi served its purpose well. It installed repos where the available software that most users would need was made available, but this again was by user choice. I don't really see how this would fix the issue; by using a third-party repository (plf or through easy urpmi) you just move the concerns to another provider: - if the user is liable anyway, having a single or several providers doesn't matter; - if the user is not liable anyway, having several providers only moves the liability from one provider to the other one. This particular point, about _patented_ software is a tricky one indeed. Dealing with local/international laws is tricky. Especially when both change over time. However, first point is not to mix different issues here: - supported software and not-supported (and what means supported) - free vs. non-free/proprietary software (as in FSF/OSI definitions) - gratis vs. paid software - for non-free software, distribution/usage cases may be tricky (skype, opera for instance) - software implementation/distribution that violates/have to comply specific laws (encryption, DRMs) - for patented software/methods, implementation/distribution/usage cases are tricky as well (a patent may or may not block you from using the method, depends on who holds the patent and for what purpose). - maybe more with more details; Anssi pretty much defined categories in his first message here. We definitely can't say bluntly let's ignore all laws because we can't enforce them all. We must define our policies for what goes in Mageia repositories, what stays out, what goes out (and why). These policies must align with (and be part of) Mageia values and direction. Cheers, Romain A good summary of the issues involved - André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 2010-10-13 10:49, andré a écrit : Tux99 a écrit : On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, [UTF-8] Marc Paré wrote: Le 2010-10-12 22:04, Tux99 a écrit : According to your logic that would mean we can't include ssh, openssl, pgp, and even https support in any browser. Does that seems reasonable to you? You need to face it, it would be impossible to make a distro that is legal in every country of the world and at the same time is of any use to the users. Therefore I don't see the need why we should comply with US patent laws when we don't comply with for example Chinese encryption laws. All of your points are exactly what I am trying to point out and even reinforce my concerns. These are all true. This is why, in my opinion, the Mageia distro should not be installing all of these controversial software packages by default. Are you seriously suggesting Mageia should produce a distro without ssh, openssl and even with all browsers stripped of https support? I can imagine how popular that would be with the majority of users... This would then remove that layer of liability from the Mageia project group. In my opinion, Mageia should be wary in wanting to install a fully functioning distro if this means using software packages that may get it into trouble (Mageia itself). But here lies the mistake in your reasoning. Mageia doesn't have to exclude all those packages, since the only liability Mageia has, is towards the French laws. So the sensible choice is to base the choice of packages to include on French law. It is up to the user to make sure he/she only installs and uses packages that are legal in his/her country. Excuse me if I'm wrong -- but you seem to be arguing at cross purposes. Marc says don't install codecs by default, and Tux99 (and many others) say codecs must be included in the distro so the user can choose to install them. Simple solution - include them in the distro, but not installed by default. Where is the problem ? To make things easier, maybe we should put seriously threatened software in the non-free section ? (I mean software which is *known* to have problems, not those just *rumoured* to have.) In any case, I would certainly avoid excluding useful codecs from the distribution ISOs. By the way, it is not only what is permitted in France, but also what is permitted in the countries where the mirrors are hosted. Here in Canada, there is (no longer) a mirror for Mandriva, so the nearest Mandriva mirrors are in the U.S. A few years back, the U.S. restricted severely encryption, unlike in Canada and most of the rest of the world. So to have normal encryption with Mozilla software, we in Canada had to download Mozilla from Europe, since there were at that time no mirrors for Mozilla in Canada. Luckily the U.S. no longer has such restrictions. Having to download an entire distro from Europe would be much more problematic. So it is useful to consider the laws in likely mirror locations. For North America, Canada is always a good choice :) my 2 cents:) - André (andre999) Yes, all of this would be a fine middle ground in my opinion. Re: Canadian repos -- U. of Sherbrook (Québec, Canada) dropped the Mandriva mirrors for unknown reason (I suspect that the person who had a personal interest in maintaining these just moved on). I was however pleasantly surprised to see that U. of Waterloo offering the Mandriva KDE 4.5.0 updates on their servers. We may be able to convince them to mirror the Mageia project on their servers. I may be able to help as I live in Wateloo (no contacts at the U. of Waterloo though), more at the other university Wilfrid Laurier. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 2010-10-13 10:58, Olivier Méjean a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 16:49:35, Marc Paré a écrit : Le 2010-10-13 10:29, Olivier Méjean a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 15:44:27, Sinner from the Prairy a écrit : Marc Paré wrote: I think pre-selected Country installs would just be too hard to coordinate, laws change. Free and non-free is pretty simple. My tuppence worth: Mageia should not distribute non-Free code. However, Mageia could provide a wizard to enable users to easily install audio and video codecs and utilities from online repositories at Zarb.org. That way, it is the responsibility of the user to check his own legal status. The Mandriva install system does not make it easy enough. It requires that a user figure out which codecs and stuff he needs, which is a kind of a black art. I have done it many times, but it is painful.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Am 12.10.2010 17:02, schrieb Anssi Hannula: Hi all! Do people have any thoughts on what kind of repository/media sectioning we should use on Mageia, and what should those sections contain? My 2 cents: Generally i would like to avoid a seperation like main/contrib in mandriva, but it would be nice to differentiate between free/non-free, this may not be done through seperate repos, but with some packaging magic like added metadata or some other dirty tricks ;) so that it is possible to have a free/libre install out-of-the box, asking during installation. Or maybe always do a free/libre default install, and afterwards on the first boot with mageia, and after having set up repos, give the user the choice to have all codecs/multimedia stuff automatically installed by a package task-multimedia-magic, but presenting him an overview what that choice could mean: patent infringement, dmca-like stuff and so on. So every user gets a free/libre default install, but automatically the choice to be able to play all sorts of multimedia files. Moreover what i think would be more important to not make something like with Mandriva/PLF, so that users get these by default, but maybe deactivated. There should be no bigger 3rd party repositories necessary, IMHO.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
2010/10/13 Marc Paré m...@marcpare.com: Yes, I have always seen this as a communication problem from the Mandriva documentation. However, it did fit the at arm's length legal definition of the installation of these pieces of software. That is to mean that Mandriva, in this case, was not complicit in the installation of that particular software. It was clearly a user decision to install them. +1 It's easy to communicate, it's easy to implement fitting even those dumb users some people are talking about. Yesterday I installed the new Ubuntu 10.10, a window opened near the end of the installation process telling me that my hardware may need/use a non-free driver which is available online. The text explains about the non-free status in simple words and then I was asked if I wanted to activate this non-free driver. The same can be done with all that codec stuff. A window opens, telling the user that he will need some special software to listen to MP3s, watch his commercial DVDs, etc. The text explains in simple words the legal implications which may or may not apply to his country. After that he can decide with a simple mouse click on yes or no or ask later (if he has no working internet connection at that time. If he clicks on activate, the needed software will be downloaded and installed. If he clicks on ask later he will be asked as soon as the script detects a working internet connection. If he has selected No and still tries to open a commecrial DVD (or whatever) the window ill appear again reminding him why he can't play the DVD (or whatever). Face it: we do not have any other choice but leave it at the user's decision. All we can do is make it simple if he chooses to bite the bullet.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Proposal: Updating released versions (long post)
Le samedi 09 octobre 2010 à 11:10 +0200, Renaud MICHEL a écrit : On samedi 09 octobre 2010 at 05:45, andré wrote : Note that configuration files that have been changed from the installation default are often already saved. (Generally .old is appended to the configuration file name, sometimes .new to the new configuration file.) But here you are only talking about system-wide configuration files, which are known of rpm as they are part of the package and marked as config files. But what about user specific configuration files? For the easy kind, where a program will have a single configuration file (or dedicated directory), a pre-inst script could find it in the home of each users and backup them. touching /home is forbidden in %pre and %post per policy. 1) you cannot be sure that every user are available ( ie, using ldap/nis ) 2) you cannot be sure that someone is not already using the directory/config file ( ie, shared home by nfs, or multiuser system ) 3) you cannot be sure that the home is mounted ( auto mounter based on login, etc ) -- Michael Scherer
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 2010-10-13 13:04, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/13 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com: Yes, I have always seen this as a communication problem from the Mandriva documentation. However, it did fit the at arm's length legal definition of the installation of these pieces of software. That is to mean that Mandriva, in this case, was not complicit in the installation of that particular software. It was clearly a user decision to install them. +1 It's easy to communicate, it's easy to implement fitting even those dumb users some people are talking about. Yesterday I installed the new Ubuntu 10.10, a window opened near the end of the installation process telling me that my hardware may need/use a non-free driver which is available online. The text explains about the non-free status in simple words and then I was asked if I wanted to activate this non-free driver. The same can be done with all that codec stuff. A window opens, telling the user that he will need some special software to listen to MP3s, watch his commercial DVDs, etc. The text explains in simple words the legal implications which may or may not apply to his country. After that he can decide with a simple mouse click on yes or no or ask later (if he has no working internet connection at that time. If he clicks on activate, the needed software will be downloaded and installed. If he clicks on ask later he will be asked as soon as the script detects a working internet connection. If he has selected No and still tries to open a commecrial DVD (or whatever) the window ill appear again reminding him why he can't play the DVD (or whatever). Face it: we do not have any other choice but leave it at the user's decision. All we can do is make it simple if he chooses to bite the bullet. This sounds like a good alternative also. I like this method too! The user is always in control. This thread is actually good in getting different scenarios of implementing legally grey software packages. Maybe someone will take notes of the different methods that could be used to deliver these type of software packages and then the devs or the higher ups will obviously make the final decision after considering all of these delivery methods. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Am 13.10.2010 19:04, schrieb Wolfgang Bornath: The same can be done with all that codec stuff. A window opens, telling the user that he will need some special software to listen to MP3s, watch his commercial DVDs, etc. The text explains in simple words the legal implications which may or may not apply to his country. After that he can decide with a simple mouse click on yes or no or ask later (if he has no working internet connection at that time. If he clicks on activate, the needed software will be downloaded and installed. If he clicks on ask later he will be asked as soon as the script detects a working internet connection. If he has selected No and still tries to open a commecrial DVD (or whatever) the window ill appear again reminding him why he can't play the DVD (or whatever). Face it: we do not have any other choice but leave it at the user's decision. All we can do is make it simple if he chooses to bite the bullet. That's exactly what i meant, just expressed a little better :)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le mardi 12 octobre 2010 à 18:02 +0300, Anssi Hannula a écrit : Hi all! Do people have any thoughts on what kind of repository/media sectioning we should use on Mageia, and what should those sections contain? Note that I won't talk about backports / private repositories in this post, only about the basic sectioning and packages in those. Some points to consider (I've written my opinion in ones where I have one): == Do we want a separated core repository? No separated core: Fedora, Debian, Opensuse Separated core: Mandriva (main), Ubuntu (main), Arch (Core) How do we decide what would be in core ? == How are the sections named? :) I think I'm in favor of renaming 'contrib' to 'extra'. +1, if we decide to keep contrib == Where do firmware without license go (DVB, V4L, etc)? To unsupported non-free repository: Ubuntu (multiverse) [1], To unsupported repository without binary packages: Arch (AUR) Nowhere: Debian, Fedora, Opensuse, Mandriva I guess for this one I'd prefer a helper draktool to handle/download these instead of shipping them ourselves. If there is no licence, I would say Nowhere. This is just illegal under most country laws, despites likely to be uneforced by rightholders. So, even if I think the legal risk is low, I would say no because this is a question of free software ethics more than laws. == What about patents? Almost no software with patents: Fedora, Opensuse - Essentially no media codecs except theora/vorbis/ogg/vp8 etc. - Strange exception: libXft, Cairo and Qt4 are shipped with LCD filtering support enabled, even if it is disabled in freetype No software with enforced patents: Debian - not included (at least): x264 (encoder), lame mp3 (encoder) - included (at least): MPEG/x decoders, H.264 decoders, MP3 decoders, AAC decoders, AMR decoders, DTS decoders, AC3 decoders, WMV/WMA decoders, realvideo decoders, etc Some software covered by patents not included: Mandriva - see below for more information All software covered by patents allowed: Arch, Ubuntu IMO we should alter our policy to match either Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu.. The Mandriva policy makes no sense (for example, no AAC decoder but yes for H.264 decoder and MPEG-4 encoder?). I'm really not sure which way we should go, though. WDYT? I would go the Debian way. Ubuntu and Fedora are tied to companies, and Debian is not, so their policies are likely more adapted to our own model. Debian way seems to be more pragmatic that Ubuntu/Fedora on that matter. == Do we allow P2P file transfer software? Yes: Arch, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu No, except torrents: Mandriva Unknown, at least torrents allowed: Opensuse I would say yes. The reason of the rule in Mandriva was unclear and not justified, IMHO. Afaik, it was just there is lots of lawsuits going on this, let's forbid it. Maybe if someone can get in touch with Lenny, he can explain us, but I think this was not baked by anything. == And gaming emulators? Allowed: Arch, Debian, Ubuntu Mostly no, but at least fuse-emulator is shipped: Fedora Unknown, but lots of them are in OBS 'Emulators' project (unofficial but in official mirrors): Opensuse No, but at least zsnes is shipped: Mandriva Well, why separate gamin emulator from regular emulator ? The legal risk is near zero in both case, given the few cases since 10 years. Sony lost the lawsuit against Bleem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem! ), and again Connectix ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Game_Station ). The only recent case I can think of is when Nintendo asked to Youtube and Apple to remove a application that looked like a DS. Given the speed of Apple and Youtube to remove contents and software, we cannot consider this as a legal basis for anything. From what I have seen, emulators are much likely to be dropped because they are unmaintained than others reasons. And Fedora rational about this ( https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Emulators ) is IMHO weak. I know people who play to the game they bought on their console, I know people who play to game they developed, and we even have people who ported linux ( like dslinux, but the site seems down ). So I would align on Debian policy ( and as the zsnes maintainer, I have no idea of why it was allowed in contrib while the others one didn't ). -- Michael Scherer
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 à 20:06 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 19:31:44, Michael Scherer a écrit : Le mardi 12 octobre 2010 à 17:53 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : == And DVDCSS, etc? What's in etc ? However, here in France we have a law Dadvsi on which the Conseil Constitutionnel (something like American Suprem Court) has statuted that the law could not prevent exception of decompilation and the exception of circumvention of DRM if this is for interoperability. In other words the use of libdvdcss is allowed for interoperability. So for me, Mageia can come with libdvdcss and other tools for interoperability And for the people hosting mirrors outside of France ? It's their own responsability, no one force them, and some in the world take the responsability to host mirrors with questionnable software. Let's give them the liberty to choose as we have the opportunity here in France to ship such software. No one forces several company, university, or other groups to mirror ArchLinux, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, PLF So I assume that you volunteer to find another Tier 1 mirror to replace ibiblio.org ? -- Michael Scherer
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 2010-10-13 14:23, Michael Scherer a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 à 20:06 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 19:31:44, Michael Scherer a écrit : Le mardi 12 octobre 2010 à 17:53 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : == And DVDCSS, etc? What's in etc ? However, here in France we have a law Dadvsi on which the Conseil Constitutionnel (something like American Suprem Court) has statuted that the law could not prevent exception of decompilation and the exception of circumvention of DRM if this is for interoperability. In other words the use of libdvdcss is allowed for interoperability. So for me, Mageia can come with libdvdcss and other tools for interoperability And for the people hosting mirrors outside of France ? It's their own responsability, no one force them, and some in the world take the responsability to host mirrors with questionnable software. Let's give them the liberty to choose as we have the opportunity here in France to ship such software. No one forces several company, university, or other groups to mirror ArchLinux, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, PLF So I assume that you volunteer to find another Tier 1 mirror to replace ibiblio.org ? I was actually going to approach a university in Canada this week about mirroring but I think I will wait till this is sorted out. I don't believe I could convince them if they read this thread. They would most definitely have second thoughts. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 à 14:29 -0400, Marc Paré a écrit : Le 2010-10-13 14:23, Michael Scherer a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 à 20:06 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 19:31:44, Michael Scherer a écrit : Le mardi 12 octobre 2010 à 17:53 +0200, Olivier Méjean a écrit : == And DVDCSS, etc? What's in etc ? However, here in France we have a law Dadvsi on which the Conseil Constitutionnel (something like American Suprem Court) has statuted that the law could not prevent exception of decompilation and the exception of circumvention of DRM if this is for interoperability. In other words the use of libdvdcss is allowed for interoperability. So for me, Mageia can come with libdvdcss and other tools for interoperability And for the people hosting mirrors outside of France ? It's their own responsability, no one force them, and some in the world take the responsability to host mirrors with questionnable software. Let's give them the liberty to choose as we have the opportunity here in France to ship such software. No one forces several company, university, or other groups to mirror ArchLinux, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, PLF So I assume that you volunteer to find another Tier 1 mirror to replace ibiblio.org ? I was actually going to approach a university in Canada this week about mirroring but I think I will wait till this is sorted out. I don't believe I could convince them if they read this thread. They would most definitely have second thoughts. Well, then you can simply be clear with them and ask them to see their boss/lawyers/whatever who can decide. After all, I do not see why no one directly asked to mirror admins first. -- Michael Scherer
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Wolfgang Bornath wrote: It's easy to communicate, it's easy to implement fitting even those dumb users some people are talking about. Yesterday I installed the new Ubuntu 10.10, a window opened near the end of the installation process telling me that my hardware may need/use a non-free driver which is available online. The text explains about the non-free status in simple words and then I was asked if I wanted to activate this non-free driver. The same can be done with all that codec stuff. A window opens, telling the user that he will need some special software to listen to MP3s, watch his commercial DVDs, etc. The text explains in simple words the legal implications which may or may not apply to his country. After that he can decide with a simple mouse click on yes or no or ask later (if he has no working internet connection at that time. If he clicks on activate, the needed software will be downloaded and installed. If he clicks on ask later he will be asked as soon as the script detects a working internet connection. If he has selected No and still tries to open a commecrial DVD (or whatever) the window ill appear again reminding him why he can't play the DVD (or whatever). Face it: we do not have any other choice but leave it at the user's decision. All we can do is make it simple if he chooses to bite the bullet. Wolfgang, Well done. Even I understood that. Mageia, as a foundation, will be separated form legal proceedings by passing the burden of the decision to the end user, as a flexible way of acknowledging that laws are not the same everywhere, and the end-user will (should) be better informed than an automated script of what is allowed and not. And if the end user decides to break the law, it is the end user's responsibility. Salut, Sinner
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Michael Scherer wrote: So I assume that you volunteer to find another Tier 1 mirror to replace ibiblio.org ? I'm pretty sure ibiblio.org will host Mageia mirror. Salut, Sinner
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
About codecs Codeina will be available in Mageia ? I find it very comfortable for new and advanced users. -- Dimitrios Glentadakis
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
Le 2010-10-13 14:44, Sinner from the Prairy a écrit : Wolfgang Bornath wrote: It's easy to communicate, it's easy to implement fitting even those dumb users some people are talking about. Yesterday I installed the new Ubuntu 10.10, a window opened near the end of the installation process telling me that my hardware may need/use a non-free driver which is available online. The text explains about the non-free status in simple words and then I was asked if I wanted to activate this non-free driver. The same can be done with all that codec stuff. A window opens, telling the user that he will need some special software to listen to MP3s, watch his commercial DVDs, etc. The text explains in simple words the legal implications which may or may not apply to his country. After that he can decide with a simple mouse click on yes or no or ask later (if he has no working internet connection at that time. If he clicks on activate, the needed software will be downloaded and installed. If he clicks on ask later he will be asked as soon as the script detects a working internet connection. If he has selected No and still tries to open a commecrial DVD (or whatever) the window ill appear again reminding him why he can't play the DVD (or whatever). Face it: we do not have any other choice but leave it at the user's decision. All we can do is make it simple if he chooses to bite the bullet. Wolfgang, Well done. Even I understood that. Mageia, as a foundation, will be separated form legal proceedings by passing the burden of the decision to the end user, as a flexible way of acknowledging that laws are not the same everywhere, and the end-user will (should) be better informed than an automated script of what is allowed and not. And if the end user decides to break the law, it is the end user's responsibility. Salut, Sinner At issue here, in the discussion, was the method of delivery. Wolfgang wrote of the Ubuntu method which seems also fine to me. Having repos where contentious software packages were kept (just like PLF) was another method. Others suggested that Mageia repos should just offer up everything regardless of legal implications. Have I missed any other methods? Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc
I was actually going to approach a university in Canada this week about mirroring but I think I will wait till this is sorted out. I don't believe I could convince them if they read this thread. They would most definitely have second thoughts. Well, then you can simply be clear with them and ask them to see their boss/lawyers/whatever who can decide. After all, I do not see why no one directly asked to mirror admins first. I am not sure that if I were to approach them and ask, as a favour, to mirror Mageia, to then ask them to check with their lawyers etc., that this would make for a good argument for them or give them too much of a feeling of trust. They would just not want to talk. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Proposal: Updating released versions (long post)
Michael Scherer wrote: touching /home is forbidden in %pre and %post per policy. 1) you cannot be sure that every user are available ( ie, using ldap/nis ) 2) you cannot be sure that someone is not already using the directory/config file ( ie, shared home by nfs, or multiuser system ) 3) you cannot be sure that the home is mounted ( auto mounter based on login, etc ) Excellent point; I hadn't thought of that. One way of doing it might be, having identified packages that require this sort of support, to wrap the executables with scripts that do this the next time a user runs the software before the real executable is launched.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Proposal: Updating released versions (long post)
On Wednesday 13 octobre 2010 at 23:34, Frank Griffin wrote : One way of doing it might be, having identified packages that require this sort of support, to wrap the executables with scripts that do this the next time a user runs the software before the real executable is launched. Now that's getting very hackish. I'd rather not have many programs wrapped in scripts that would do some magic on my home dir under the hood. Because with such a solution the programs would be always wrapped, even if you never do a rollback. How would such script detect that it actually was a rollback and it should do his magic on the config files. What would happen if the user did not run that program between the update and the rollback? It seems the complexity is not worth the benefit, and those scripts are likely to not be well tested and might make things worse if things are not like they expected. -- Renaud Michel
Re: [Mageia-dev] Proposal: Updating released versions (long post)
Renaud MICHEL wrote: On Wednesday 13 octobre 2010 at 23:34, Frank Griffin wrote : One way of doing it might be, having identified packages that require this sort of support, to wrap the executables with scripts that do this the next time a user runs the software before the real executable is launched. Now that's getting very hackish. I'd rather not have many programs wrapped in scripts that would do some magic on my home dir under the hood. Because with such a solution the programs would be always wrapped, even if you never do a rollback. How would such script detect that it actually was a rollback and it should do his magic on the config files. The wrapper script would be specific to the package version which provided it. If it finds a saved config file with a name matching its own version, it restores it and deletes the saved one. If it doesn't, it does nothing. What would happen if the user did not run that program between the update and the rollback? Nothing, because the new wrapper script would never have been executed to save a previous version, so the restored old wrapper script would not find anything to restore. It seems the complexity is not worth the benefit, and those scripts are likely to not be well tested and might make things worse if things are not like they expected. That's a pretty broad statement, especially considering the complexity of some of the wrapper scripts we already have. This is not that complex, and the benefit of finding a solution is considerable, based on the previous posts/relies in this thread.
Re: [Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?
On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:20:40 -0400 Sinner from the Prairy sinnerbofh-re5jqeeqqe8avxtiumw...@public.gmane.org wrote: Fernando Parra wrote: (Finally, it would not be as strict versions of certain components. If, for example morning out mageia 2010 (for instance) and the day after Firefox 4.0 comes out, you do not run the 3.6.x version with all the time,) That's very clear, these users are trying to say: We want a different model, but we want a stable distro As we have been saying over and over again, this only indicates zero knowledge of backports repositories. We should publicize more Backports. Salut, Sinner And I shall reply over and over again, backports isn't a solution, maybe it's a technical solution, but it isn't The Solution. The end users need to do less than now for to get new versions of their favourites applications. Mageia needs to offer more than other distros, much more, in a different way. If we aren't to be able to make a completely new concept, we are in a serious risk to become in other distro at that sea called GNU / Linux. -- Fernando Parra gato2...@yahoo.com.mx
Re: [Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?
Le 2010-10-14 00:20, Tux99 a écrit : Quote: Fernando Parra wrote on Thu, 14 October 2010 05:59 Sinner from the Prairy wrote: We should publicize more Backports. And I shall reply over and over again, backports isn't a solution, maybe it's a technical solution, but it isn't The Solution. The end users need to do less than now for to get new versions of their favourites applications. Mageia needs to offer more than other distros, much more, in a different way. If we aren't to be able to make a completely new concept, we are in a serious risk to become in other distro at that sea called GNU / Linux. -- Fernando Parragato2...@yahoo.com.mx I agree with what Fernando says, if we could agree on a release cycle that is half way between the fixed release cycle of Mandriva/Ubuntu/Fedora/Suse and the rolling release cycle of PClinuxOS/Gentoo, then Mageia would attract a lot of interest in the Linux world do to it offering something new and compelling rather than the same as everyone else. The results of the poll on mandrivauser.de seem to indicate a strong wish in this direction too, almost half of the voters voted for an annual release cycle with a partial rolling release cycle, i.e. exactly what was suggested in this thread earlier, a stable core updated once a year (apart from security and bug fixes) with new app versions made available during the whole year. http://www.mandrivauser.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=188t=29694 Thanks for posting the site Tux99. There was talk of more user groups doing the poll/survey. Does anyone know if this is being done? Great data for the devs to consider. Marc
