Proposal: Revision of policy surrounding 3rd party and non-free software

[Pete Travis]

On Jan 22, 2014 9:54 AM, "Josh Boyer" <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Robert Mayr
> <robyduck at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > 2014/1/22 Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org>:
> >> On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Pete Travis <lists at petetravis.com>
wrote:
> >>> From the Fedora perspective, there are users who have Fedora who also
want
> >>> to use the Nvidia blob, and your proposal is to enable them. It makes
sense,
> >>> in the sense that you are working to solve Fedora problems, where you
have
> >>> some influence. "Fedora supports Nvidia" doesn't fly though, and
regardless
> >>> of the language you use or implementation details like shipping
metadata
> >>> instead of binaries, that *is* the perceived message of your proposal.
> >>
> >> A small but important clarification here.  In the proposal, Fedora
> >> would not ship binaries and would not ship metadata.  It would not
> >> ship anything related to a 3rd party repository other than knowing the
> >> web-accessible location of a repository.  It is, in effect anyway, the
> >> equivalent of doing a "google: nvidia linux repository" in a software
> >> installer.
> >
> > Sure, but the message you give is: hey, there are these listed FOSS
> > solutions for what you're searching for, but I suggest you the 3d
> > party software, just click here!
> > Sorry but I really don't want to see something like this on Fedora. Do
> > we want to throw away what for 10 years has been a basic feature of
> > our OS?
>
> As I said, I wasn't elaborating on the wider picture.  I'm just
> correcting misconceptions of the proposal as I see them.
>
> josh
>

You caught me; I was thinking metadata, not a link to metadata. Poor
language on my part, I appreciate the correction.

The distinction is subtle and mostly semantic, though. The choice for
Fedora in the wider picture is the same, whether repo definition or
metadata, on or off by default, or whatever implementation details are
discussed. The targeted users won't know the difference.

>From a technical standpoint (not to encourage a further tangent, the
comparison is not perfect ) it is much the same as providing a pointer to
the updates-testing repo; off by default, no metadata on the media, easily
enabled. The difference is whose interests are served. The question of
principles and policy need consensus first, the rest is just details.

--Pete
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