Are packages w/o necessary kernel modules allowed?

[Seth Vidal]

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Kevin Fenzi wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:01:40 -0400 (EDT)
> Seth Vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>
>>> Then our opions diverge: I think it should be a hard show stopper
>>> criterion.
>>>
>>> There should not be any room for any "cripple ware" in Fedora nor
>>> should Fedora be a stage for "closed source loaders".
>>
>> I think I agree.
>>
>>
>> This is just like shipping a package with an intentionally missing
>> dependency. We wouldn't allow shipping yum if rpm were missing,
>> right?
>>
>> this sounds the same to me.
>
> So, how about some other cases instead of just kmods:
>
> - Client apps that are free and acceptable for fedora, but a server app
>  that is not.
>
> EXAMPLE: mpd (in rpmfusion) and all the various mpd clients that are
> all in fedora.
>
> - Library app thats free, but only non free things link against it so
>  far.
>
> EXAMPLE: libvdpau
>
> - Package that is free an interfaces with a non free server's data:
>
> EXAMPLE: dbxml-perl
>
> - Package that is free, but the kernel part of it's currently not
>  working (although planned to be back and great work is being done on
>  it):
>
> EXAMPLE: xen
>
> - Package that is free and acceptable for fedora, but requires a non
>  free service to function:
>
> EXAMPLE: perl-Net-Amazon-EC2
>
> Where does the black and white line come in here?
> Or is it shades of grey?
>

We've allowed pretty much all of the cases where you could communicate 
over the network to something else.

but we're not talking about over-the-network communication here.


-sv