Fedora/RH policies sometimes suck

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 4/10/07, linuxmaillists at charter.net <linuxmaillists at charter.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 April 2007, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> > On 4/10/07, Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 10 April 2007, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> > > > On 4/10/07, Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday 10 April 2007 05:31, Ed Greshko wrote:
> > > > > > linuxmaillists at charter.net wrote:
> > > > > > > I just want to know what other
> > > > > > > packages are on the Fedora distro that are are
> > > > > > > missing original functionality simply because
> > > > > > > of legal issues.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > And that would help how?  Yes, you'd know what
> > > > > > you're missing...but you already know you're
> > > > > > missing "something" so why not install the
> > > > > > OpenOffice rpms and be assured of missing
> > > > > > nothing.
> > > > >
> > > > > No-one is answering the question.  Forget the
> > > > > OpenOffice fixation.  The question is 'How do we
> > > > > know which of Fedora's packages have been altered
> > > > > in this way?'
> > > >
> > > > I suppose you might say that you didn't like my
> > > > ambiguous, non-official response, but I would prefer
> > > > that you hold me to some regard higher than "no-one".
> > > > I'll attempt a response again.
> > > >
> > > > OpenOffice is the first I have heard of this. And
> > > > while I believe this particular thing is a small
> > > > thing, I suppose others disagree. If you know of
> > > > other specific cases, let us know... maybe someone
> > > > can keep track. But to my knowledge no such list
> > > > exists, what does exist is the publicly known policy.
> > > > Again, no such list as that you request exists to my
> > > > knowledge.
> > > >
> > > > And besides OpenOffice, which I wasn't aware of, I am
> > > > aware of no other such deficiencies. And lack of
> > > > codecs do not fit this bill since codecs aren't part
> > > > of the program. The feature in question here was part
> > > > of the program.
> > > >
> > > > > OpenOffice would be one, but there are others.
> > > > > Totem comes to mind, and I'd guess that there are
> > > > > lots more.  As Les remarked, it could be indicated
> > > > > in the package name.
> > > >
> > > > Or, one could be aware of Fedora's fairly simple and
> > > > straight forward policies.
> > > >
> > > > > As for how it would help, we could then decide for
> > > > > ourselves whether we need to go to the source and
> > > > > build our own packages.
> > > > >
> > > > > Anne
> > > >
> > > > You could always do that. Have you suffered from any
> > > > such "stripping" before?
> > >
> > > No, Arthur.  You are still not answering the question.
> > > To be truthful, I doubt if anyone here can.  You (and
> > > others) go over and over the same points about
> > > OpenOffice.  That is not what the question was.  The
> > > question, once again, is how many other packages are
> > > similarly affected?  and how could you know?
> > >
> > > Being aware of the policies is no help at all if you
> > > don't know which bit of coding might transgress and
> > > whether it is present in the source material.
> > >
> > > Anne
> >
> > The answer was... "such a list does not exist'
> >
> > --
> > Fedora Core 6 and proud
>
> Where can we go to make a request that a list be created.
> Because the Fedora/RH team evaluates all the software, the
> lawyers get involved and the software that has to be
> modified is identified and then dealt with accordingly.  So
> there is knowledge somewhere in the company of what
> software has been changed to remove function that is
> declared legally dangerous to use in the distro.
>

As far as I know, the legal team only gets involved when the packagers
can't make the decision themselves, ie. the circumstances are
ambiguous - ofcourse however, the best place to check is the -legal
list, as has already been suggested.


-- 
Fedora Core 6 and proud