Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo internal structure

[Jon Portnoy <avenj@gentoo.org>]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 09:16:19AM -0600, Matthew Kennedy wrote:
> Jason Stubbs <jasonbstubbs@mailandnews.com> writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > massive amount of licenses, I suggest having reasonable defaults for 
> > ACCEPT_LICENSES is make.defaults.
> >
> > The reason for this is that the free vs non-free questioning comes up on -user 
> > every month or two. Each time, the answer is invariably "you wont find what 
> > you're looking for here". I would prefer to be able to say, "sure, Gentoo can 
> > do that". And it seems if the above were implemented it would be as easy as 
> > ACCEPT_LICENSES="-* GPL-1 GPL-2 LGPL-2 LGPL-2.1". (I'm not so familiar with 
> > which licenses but I'm sure someone that cares would be).
> >
> > As a added benefit, using something similar to the above would ensure that a 
> > stage3 tarball would never be 'polluted'. I'm sure there would be other 
> > benefits, too.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Personally, I am only interested in supporting and using free
> software, so...
> 
> The best solution is just to remove support for anything non-free in
> portage and to also remove any non-free software from our mirrors.
> Let some other external project step up to the plate and provide a
> non-free overlay if they wish.  This would put us in a position to be
> the only GNU/Linux distribution out there which is truly Free
> according to GNU standards (AFAIK).  Wouldn't that be a great selling
> point?
> 

No, actually, it would be the reason a lot of users return to a 
different distribution.

While you and I are free software advocates, you have to keep in mind 
what the greater user community wants and needs. I am very active in the 
user community and I can assure you that people definitely do not want 
to have to take extra steps to get nonfree software because a small 
group of people decided it should be that way. They want to be able to 
make decisions for themselves and think distributions should be there to 
facilitate whatever they choose to do, and I agree with them.

I also think that if we implement ACCEPT_LICENSES, it should most 
definitely accept all licenses (except e.g. the ID licenses) by 
default, or at least a grouping like 'free nonfree'

-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net

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