On encouraging Macromedia & others to supply repos for Fedora

[Benjy Grogan]

On 10/20/06, David Nielsen <david at lovesunix.net> wrote:
> fre, 20 10 2006 kl. 04:17 -0400, skrev Benjy Grogan:
> > On 10/20/06, David Nielsen <david at lovesunix.net> wrote:
> > > fre, 20 10 2006 kl. 02:31 -0400, skrev Benjy Grogan:
> > > > When I installed the flash-plugin during FC5 first days out of the
> > > > womb it was a one shot deal.  I used the Macromedia repo that Warren
> > > > Togami announced <http://lwn.net/Articles/176376/> and was
> > > > automatically offered all security updates that followed.  Will Fedora
> > > > re-announce that deal with FC6, and are there any other repo deals in
> > > > the making with other ISVs?  Google, Skype, and Sun Microsystems would
> > > > be good candidates.  I wouldn't mind being offered Google Earth and
> > > > Picasa updates as they come about.
> > >
> > > I find it rather unfortunate given the official stance on proprietary
> > > software that Warren elects to use the fedora announce mailing list to
> > > announce what it likely a personal project he runs in his sparetime with
> > > no relation to the Fedora Project. It muddies up the clarity of our
> > > stance to users like yourself.
> >
> > If the repo exists then it's great that Mr. Togami is informing the
> > Fedora community.  It's clear that Fedora is ardently pro-FOSS but
> > there is nothing illegal about proprietary software so I don't see why
> > it's mention should be taboo.  In the case of providing a repo to
> > Sun's Java there could be some tension considering all the hardwork
> > going into GCJ.  I think it strengthens Fedora because these
> > proprietaries entities are then integrating more into the open source
> > framework where yum repositories are used.
>
> I was mainly complaining about his choice of announcement channel, using
> his status and the Fedora projects official announcement lists does give
> people like yourself the idea to ask questions like:
>
> "Will we be making more deals like this" when the Fedora project clear
> has no such deal nor can it due to it's pure FLOSS guidelines.
>
> Warren should know better, as should you for that matter, you clearly
> understand that there's a reason for the stance we take, thus please
> don't assume that we have in the past or will in the future compromise
> that stance to provide officially supported repos of proprietary
> software.
>
> No it's not illegal, but we have standards and any attempt to package up
> such software for the Fedora platform should be kept well clear of the
> official Fedora project so not to confuse people like yourself into
> asking questions which answer themselves..
>
> No, there will be no deals between e.g. Skype and Fedora unless it
> involves their code under an OSI approved license.

How did that official agreement come about?  It would be of no use to
RHEL I'm guessing because they include the flash-plugin and other
proprietary software in the enterprise product.  I see your point that
the Fedora Project shouldn't be negotiating with ISVs but if a Red Hat
employee leads an ISV to create a yum repository for some of their
software and it works with Fedora Core releases then there's no
problem announcing it.

Benjy



>
> - David Nielsen
>
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