[gentoo-project] Re: changing the default of ACCEPT_LICENSE in portage

["Steven J. Long" <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk>]

hasufell wrote:
> Matthew Thode wrote:
> > hasufell wrote:
> >> Gentoo has a social contract [1] which makes a lot of noise about
> >> free software. However our default settings allow to use almost
> >> any kind of non-free license such as "all-rights-reserved".
> >> 
> >> While I see nothing wrong with gentoo providing proprietary stuff
> >> (and I have created a lot of such games ebuilds), I think
> >> according to our philsophy and social contract we should make
> >> people aware of free software and because of that also change the
> >> default to:
> >> 
> >> ACCEPT_LICENSE="@FREE"
> >> 
> >> This is only about the _default_. We will have to change the
> >> handbook at "1.d. Licenses" [2] and might also make a news item.
> >> 
> > This is what I thought the default license group already was, I'm
> > all for it :D
> 
> The default is currently:
> 
> ACCEPT_LICENSE:"* -@EULA"
> 
> in /usr/share/portage/config/make.globals

This is reasonable, but can we have the above old-default commented out in make.conf,
above the new setting? That way things are transparent, and users who want to switch
to using non-free can do so easily without the EULA stuff being pulled in, aiui it
would be if users simply put "*" in there.

After all, as you yourself wrote about:
> adding a line such as: ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"
..users are likely to reach for that by default, too, when they shouldn't accept
@EULA generically, but via package.license.

Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> Also this would affect the kernel sources when deblobbing is disabled.
>
> I am not against this move, but this will require a lot of effort in
> educating users about the consequences.

Presumably stages have been built, and machines installed using just @FREE? I'd just
like assurance that these "consequences" are known not to affect a standard desktop
install, or that this will be tested thoroughly before the switch, in which case it
is not, one would hope, imminent.

Regards,
steveL
-- 
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