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

[David Farning]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Holger Levsen <holger at layer-acht.org> wrote:

> 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).
>

Holger,

Thanks for taking the time to think about and explain this issues clearly
from a packager/distribution point of view.

david

>
>
> regards,
>         Holger
>
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