[Fedora-packaging] Firmwares, roms and who decides on packagable items

[Axel Thimm]

On Thu, Oct 19, 2006 at 07:03:01AM +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > I think the package group's mandate is about *how* to package,
> ACK.
> 
> >  not *what* to package and whether it's legal, endagers Fedora
> > sponsors, is in the spirit of Fedora etc.
> 
> This questions lurking inside of this topic are "how" questions:
> * "How to package package-fragments source ship/require in binary form"
> * "When to consider rebuilding from sources not useful".
> 
> The FPG it tries to narrow this problem to a set of precedences of
> exception on "what" (firmware), but actually doesn't cover these
> questions above, except that it wants packagers "to build everything
> from sources".
> 
> > E.g. these goals are set from a higher instance and we just provide
> > matching guidelines. IMO we shouldn't redefine objectives, this needs
> > to be escalated to <your board here>. Especially if something isn't
> > spelled out in the current objectives as clear as the
> > position/distinction towards firmwares and other non-source binaries.
> 
> The later half of your sentence is what I consider not to be clear.
> 
> Technically, firmware blobs are "download images", i.e. a container of
> arbitrary format with arbitrary contents, just like floppy disks images,
> CDROM images, tarballs or ar-archives.
> 
> Do you note how the FPG criteria manage to miss the topic?

What I'm trying to say is that we need to get told what is allowed to
be packaged or not. Some here consider roms for emulators firmware,
others not, and depending on that we can or cannot apply existing
rules about firmwares. Instead of fighting over definitions let's just
ask our parents to decide on roms of emulators.

Just to present the hyperbole: Next somone packages filesystem images
for qemu and argues that these are firmwares, too. I wouldn't want to
be arguing against or in favour of that, we need clear a list of clear
exceptions to open source items.

Or a more down-to-earth example: madwifi argues that the closed source
part of it is like firmware for various reasons (I'm not trying to
support or not that view, just giving examples).

So, as a dump package engineer, who's job is to craft technical
guidelines on *how* to package stuff, I want to get the set of
packagable items from management. :)
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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