other ways of working with third party vendors [was Re: Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and non-free software]

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:05:48AM -0500, Christian Schaller wrote:
> Well it feels a bit weird to say that it would defile our values to
> allow these applications to appear in the app installer, yet it is 
> perfectly aligned with our values to work to make sure they appear in 
> the browser.
> 
> I mean if we start converting the appinstaller into a web browser, at what
> point does this become ok?

The distinction isn't in the software used, but in the act of intentionally
going to the third party versus displaying third party information without
that intentional user action. Whether it's in a web browser or in the app
installer isn't important.

Your proposal seems fairly moderate to me (not including third party
binaries *in* Fedora, for example, and leaving room for a relatively clear
distinction to be made between Fedora and other sources), but if the
community and board decision is that this isn't acceptable, the browser
extension would be the same.

(Conversely, one could make the argument that by having the repository
options presented by software in Fedora, we have a better opportunity to
educate users. I don't know how convincing that argument is to people, but
there it is.)


PS: please don't top post. I'm not saying this to be pedantic but because it
makes it hard to keep the flow of conversation in complicated threads.

-- 
Matthew Miller    --   Fedora Project    --    <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>