Fedora Board Meeting Recap 2009-02-03

[Jon Stanley]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:59 PM, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The packaging guidelines are not clear to me about whether cowsay is
> or isn't code. They also aren't clear to me about whether OVM is or
> isn't code. Judging from the FESCO minutes I would hazard a guess that
> it wasn't entirely clear to them as a body either. Is it clear to
> board members whether cowsay and/or OVM are code or content?

OVM was brought to FESCo as content, and that classification seemed to
be appropriate - per spot's definition later in this thread, OVM *is*
useful in a standalone state - as input to a SystemVerilog interpreter
and/or compiler.

However, the only thing that it's useful to is a proprietary
SystemVerilog interpreter - there is no free consumer for this (as per
the previous definition) content.

> The distinction matters because content has additional requirements
> beyond what is required of code to be included according to the
> guidelines. Whether the FESCO decision with respect to OVM was correct
> or not, the process made this onlooker feel uncomfortable as the
> distinction between code and content in some cases is so fuzzy that it
> appears to be decided by whimsy.

I don't think that it's quite whimsy.  As I discussed with you at
length on IRC, this is no different than me submitting a freely
licensed C# library without the free mono interpreter in Fedora - it's
useless without it.

> I know FESCO is a serious body. I know they take their work seriously.
> I also know there are some hard feelings, those happen from time to
> time. I am sure I am not the only one who finds this decision
> baffling. Even when I ask is OVM code or content, I get both answers.

I admit to an onlooker that it could be a baffling decision, however
it was not random or without careful deliberation (and to be clear,
all deliberation took place in public - either via fedora-devel or in
the meeting).  After the submitter disagreed with our decision, we
decided to take it up again, and came up with the identical decision -
that while we were quite enthusiastic about OVM, we couldn't allow it
in without a free method to use this content.

> When I weigh the potential benefit of OVM with, say, the hello package
> I can't help but wonder if including in OVM a silly little program
> that can be compiled on Fedora but does nothing useful would allow it
> in under the guidelines. And if so, isn't that preposterous?

I agree that the benefit of OVM is greater than that of hello (or
cowsay, which for the record I maintain for EPEL), however, the
guidelines are fairly clear here - Fedora Legal brought it to FESCo as
doubtful content, and FESCo made a decision on that (and for the
record, spot was in favor of this content being included per the
review request). I realize that there were hard feelings hare, but
those happen, and the most important thing here is that none were
intended by any party.

At times, FESCo is required to take a 50,000 foot view of things. From
that vantage point, this wasn't a precedent that we (or at least I
personally, I'll let other members speak for themselves) were willing
to set.