[IAEP] squeak/etoys accepted as free software... (was Re: Sugar on Ubuntu - Summary

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

thanks from me to Jecel for clarifications too!

On Friday 07 November 2008 19:45, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> The Squeak image "Etoys" (the only one currently packaged officially for
> Debian) is in "non-free" due to ftpmasters judging it not possible for
> the security team to maintain throughout the (multiple year long)
> lifespan of a Debian release.

IIRC/IIUC this is one aspect why the ftpmasters didnt accept it in main. More 
generally said, (IIRC) it's because the impossibility to bootstrap etoys. 
Even though the etoys developers "don't do it" and the stateful VM (or rather 
patches to it) is/are the prefered form of modification. 

And while I dont agree with the position  they are taking (should I 
say, "anymore"..) I can understand why they do: because it makes sense and 
(probably also) because this is like it always was: traditional software has 
to have the ability to be bootstrapped or build.

Squeak is special in this case and I dare to say "new". (I know it was started 
in the 70ties :) But not all people do.)

So my planned approach to get it into main in the long run, is to start a 
general discussion in Debian about this kind of software, thus stopping to 
special case squeak.

But as you might know (or not), Debian is in the process of releasing Lenny 
atm, so I don't think it's a good time to start philosophical discussions 
now. We should rather concentrate on fixing those last bugs and getting Lenny 
out, so that we concentrate again on fancy new stuff! :)


I was also happy to read Greg Dekoenigsberg mail in this tread and wonder the 
same: whether there are any lessons that can be shared between Fedora and 
Debian maintainers in this case. And how. My approach is to create a 
comprehensible document (quoted by Jonas in this thread) explaining the 
issue(s). 


regards,
	Holger
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