Plan for tomorrows (20080522) FESCO meeting

[Josh Boyer]

On Wed, 21 May 2008 16:20:39 -0300
Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat.com> wrote:

> On May 21, 2008, Brian Pepple <bpepple at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> 
> > You want something to be discussed? Send a note to the list in reply to
> > this mail and I'll add it to the schedule.
> 
> Given that Freedom² is a major fedora feature, I'd like to discuss
> enabling the creation of Fedora spins containing exclusively Free
> Software.  These are related sub-topics:
> 
> . Permission to distribute under the mark 'Fedora' spins containing
> kernel-libre packages, whose sole difference from identically-numbered
> Fedora kernel builds is the removal of a few pieces of non-Free
> Software.

All spins must be composed of packages that are contained within the
Fedora repositories.  kernel-libre does not fit that category (today).

> . Inclusion in Fedora (future and recent past releases) of the
> kernel-libre package, a 100% Free Software variant of the kernel
> Linux, that I've been maintaining tracking Fedora kernel builds at
> http://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/fsfla/linux-libre/

We've had this discussion.  We aren't going to allow a forked kernel
package.  Please work with the kernel team to integrate this into the
main kernel package.

> . Inclusion in Fedora (future and recent past releases) of a
> fedora-freedom "virtual" package, that Requires: linux-libre and
> Conflicts: with any Fedora package known to contain software (firmware
> included) that does not respect the 4 freedoms established in the Free
> Software definition.  AFAIK these would pretty much amount to the
> standard non-Free kernel and a bunch of *-firmware packages, but there
> could be sub-packages to cover other debatable packages with obscure
> source code, dubious licensing policies, etc.

You don't need a package.  Make a comps group.

> I realize these packages should probably be submitted for inclusion
> through the regular package submission process, but I was advised to
> discuss linux-libre in FESCo first, and the second is closely related
> and has no upstream.
> 
> I'm a bit hesitant, for these appear to be more of policy than
> engineering issues, and my understanding is that the board is in
> charge of such decisions.  Anyhow, it (hopefully :-) wouldn't hurt for
> the board to get recommendations from engineering in this regard,
> assuming my understanding as to how policy decisions are made is
> correct.
> 
> Please let me know whether this is a suitable topic for discussion in
> tomorrow's meeting, and I'll do my best to be there, i.e., save for
> unforeseeable issues or ISP LoQoS I've been subject to recently :-/
> the L in LoQoS is for Lack, in case it's not obvious :-)

I think we can certainly discuss it.  However I believe the biggest
hurdle to what you propose is the extra kernel-libre package.  Your
overall proposal hinges on that, and the way you've stated you would
like to provide it has been frowned upon quite a bit.

josh