[Fedora-packaging] supporting closed source operating systems? (was: Early MinGW packaging guidelines draft)

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 15:40 -0700, Anthony Green wrote:
> Regarding the packaging for mingw tools in Fedora, Axel Thimm wrote:
> > In this case I don't see the benefits for Fedora. I just see more Open
> > Source being hijacked for a non Open Source operating system.
> >   
> It's an interesting question, but here's my two part counter-argument:
> 
> 1. Our goal should be to benefit users of Fedora, and not just Fedora 
> itself.  In this case, the packager is simply proposing to include tools 
> that will benefit developers who have the misfortune of needing to 
> target the windows operating system.  If I found myself in that 
> unfortunate position, I would be very happy to find that Fedora packaged 
> a nice set of fully FOSS tools for me to use.
> 
> 2. The Open Source definition talks about discrimination against fields 
> of endeavor.   Strictly speaking, it's talking about discrimination 
> encoded into software licenses.  However, I like to think that the 
> Fedora Project should adopt this principal in a more general way, since 
> it is in keeping with the Open Source philosophy of freedom. But you're 
> asking that Fedora not include a collection of fully FOSS tools because 
> you don't like what people are going to use them for.  Do we really want 
> to set this precedent?  I hope not.

Especially when I find it pretty easy to s/MinGW/Python/ in this thread
and the arguments haven't really broken down badly yet.

-- 
Paul W. Frields
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://paul.frields.org/   -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/attachments/20080709/10c9f92b/attachment.bin