[gentoo-dev] do we need special elog messages for bindist?

[gentoo-dev] do we need special elog messages for bindist?

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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I'm looking at <https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=538628> which
suggests removing elog messages chromium has for bindist:

This is the snippet we use in the ebuild:

	if use bindist; then
		elog "bindist enabled: H.264 video support will be disabled."
	else
		elog "bindist disabled: Resulting binaries may not be legal to
re-distribute."
	fi

I think I used existing examples, e.g. from firefox ebuilds.

Anyway, do you consider the part when bindist is disabled necessary? I'm
open to removing it if it's not needed.

While we're discussing this, do you consider the message when bindist is
enabled useful? bindist is described in chromium's metadata.xml:
"Disable patent-encumbered HTML5 video codecs".

Paweł


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Re: [gentoo-dev] do we need special elog messages for bindist?

[Mike Gilbert]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 1:17 PM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr."
<phajdan.jr@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I'm looking at <https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=538628> which
> suggests removing elog messages chromium has for bindist:
>
> This is the snippet we use in the ebuild:
>
>         if use bindist; then
>                 elog "bindist enabled: H.264 video support will be disabled."
>         else
>                 elog "bindist disabled: Resulting binaries may not be legal to
> re-distribute."
>         fi
>
> I think I used existing examples, e.g. from firefox ebuilds.
>
> Anyway, do you consider the part when bindist is disabled necessary? I'm
> open to removing it if it's not needed.
>
> While we're discussing this, do you consider the message when bindist is
> enabled useful? bindist is described in chromium's metadata.xml:
> "Disable patent-encumbered HTML5 video codecs".
>

I would like to remove the elog for a couple of reasons:

1. The use flag description is there for whoever cares to read it.
There is no need to alert the user every time.
2. We are not lawyers, and I have no business giving legal advice
about patent law which varies from country to country.

To take it one step further: I think it would make more sense to call
the flag "h264" or something similar. We could then set
RESTRICT="h264? ( bindist )" if we want to give some indication that
it is not appropriate for binary redistribution.

Re: [gentoo-dev] do we need special elog messages for bindist?

[Ben Kohler]

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On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Mike Gilbert <floppym@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> I would like to remove the elog for a couple of reasons:
>
> 1. The use flag description is there for whoever cares to read it.
> There is no need to alert the user every time.
> 2. We are not lawyers, and I have no business giving legal advice
> about patent law which varies from country to country.
>
> To take it one step further: I think it would make more sense to call
> the flag "h264" or something similar. We could then set
> RESTRICT="h264? ( bindist )" if we want to give some indication that
> it is not appropriate for binary redistribution.
>
> What you're saying here makes sense and I agree, but our users are already
pretty confused about USE=bindist... what it does, why it's enabled by
default, etc.  If this is going to stay enabled by default in our stage3s
(there's an open bug about possibly changing that) then I really think we
should add a paragraph to the handbook that explains things.

It seems that most new users don't have any idea what bindist is until they
find some feature missing or they hit the classic openssl/openssh blocker
and someone has to explain the whole thing to them.

So in summary, let's get rid of the per-ebuild einfo warnings but let's
educate the users about USE=bindist earlier.

-Ben

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Re: [gentoo-dev] do we need special elog messages for bindist?

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 2/25/15 8:38 PM, Mike Gilbert wrote:
> I would like to remove the elog for a couple of reasons:
> 
> 1. The use flag description is there for whoever cares to read it.
> There is no need to alert the user every time.
> 2. We are not lawyers, and I have no business giving legal advice
> about patent law which varies from country to country.
> 
> To take it one step further: I think it would make more sense to call
> the flag "h264" or something similar. We could then set
> RESTRICT="h264? ( bindist )" if we want to give some indication that
> it is not appropriate for binary redistribution.

Makes sense.

My suggestion for the flag name would actually be proprietary-codecs.
This matches config option name in Chromium sources, and it's not just
h264 but also e.g. MPEG-4 and MP3.

The flag would be disabled by default.

I'd then add RESTRICT="proprietary-codecs? ( bindist )" to the ebuild
and remove both elog messages.

Paweł


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