On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 04:58:20PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/MinGW

What is Fedora's motivation is promoting using Open Source on a closed
source operating system? This is beyond the FPC to decide as this is a
technical committee, but still a valid question and maybe one that the
board should be investigating.

F/LOSS often had and has to compromise on its base principles to get a
lift-off, and so does Fedora (the current exception for firmwares is
such a compromise). Before there was a Linux kernel, the GNU project
was "supporting" closed source Unices and by design still does so.

But we're beyond the age of this kind of symbiosis, Linux (or
GNU/Linux ...) and Fedora in particular doesn't need this anymore. In
fact when a patch in a Fedora package is made it often doesn't matter
if it works on other Unices, sometimes not even for the Free ones.

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.
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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.


AG

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On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm@atrpms.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 04:58:20PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/MinGW
>
> What is Fedora's motivation is promoting using Open Source on a closed
> source operating system? This is beyond the FPC to decide as this is a
> technical committee, but still a valid question and maybe one that the
> board should be investigating.
>

Because people have to live in a world of compromise and have to
install windows, solaris, etc in virtual environments, etc.. and if
they can't well the company can go buy a closed source solution that
will. Usually when that happens you can pack up all those Fedora,
CentOS, etc systems on your way out .


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in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"

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On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:57:57AM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote:
> But we're beyond the age of this kind of symbiosis, Linux (or
> GNU/Linux ...) and Fedora in particular doesn't need this anymore.

The actual reality, real stuff in the real world, is that 90%+ of
users of desktop computer systems run Windows, another 5%+ are running
Mac OS X, and almost nobody (perhaps 10, 100 people in the whole
world?) are running a completely free operating system (inc. BIOS
etc).

Rich.


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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.

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On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:57:57AM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 04:58:20PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/MinGW
>
> What is Fedora's motivation is promoting using Open Source on a closed
> source operating system? This is beyond the FPC to decide as this is a
> technical committee, but still a valid question and maybe one that the
> board should be investigating.
>
> F/LOSS often had and has to compromise on its base principles to get a
> lift-off, and so does Fedora (the current exception for firmwares is
> such a compromise). Before there was a Linux kernel, the GNU project
> was "supporting" closed source Unices and by design still does so.
>
> But we're beyond the age of this kind of symbiosis, Linux (or
> GNU/Linux ...) and Fedora in particular doesn't need this anymore. In
> fact when a patch in a Fedora package is made it often doesn't matter
> if it works on other Unices, sometimes not even for the Free ones.

<rhetorical>
If we're beyond the age of symbiosis, we can remove SAMBA from Fedora
then, because that's only needed for interoperability with closed
source products.
</rhetorical>

I'd love to believe that Fedora and F/LOSS had achieved world domination
but sadly we're still fighting the battle, though unquestionably further
along than we were just a few years ago. One of the best things about
F/LOSS is that there are soo many projects breaking down proprietry walled
gardens, but providing interoperability with closed source produts/platforms.
This is providing users an escape path, allowing them to migrate to Fedora.

SAMBA is a great example of this. We want Fedora+libvirt to provide the
escape path for people running VMWare + Windows, and for this to work we
need to provide the libirt clients for Windows platforms. This enables
them to switch out VMWare in favour of Fedora + Xen/KVM, without having
to migrate their entire desktop environment from Windows to Linux at the
same time.

Daniel
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On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:57:57AM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 04:58:20PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/MinGW
>
> What is Fedora's motivation is promoting using Open Source on a closed
> source operating system? This is beyond the FPC to decide as this is a
> technical committee, but still a valid question and maybe one that the
> board should be investigating.
>
> F/LOSS often had and has to compromise on its base principles to get a
> lift-off, and so does Fedora (the current exception for firmwares is
> such a compromise). Before there was a Linux kernel, the GNU project
> was "supporting" closed source Unices and by design still does so.
>
> But we're beyond the age of this kind of symbiosis, Linux (or
> GNU/Linux ...) and Fedora in particular doesn't need this anymore. In
> fact when a patch in a Fedora package is made it often doesn't matter
> if it works on other Unices, sometimes not even for the Free ones.

<rhetorical>
If we're beyond the age of symbiosis, we can remove SAMBA from Fedora
then, because that's only needed for interoperability with closed
source products.
</rhetorical>

I'd love to believe that Fedora and F/LOSS had achieved world domination
but sadly we're still fighting the battle, though unquestionably further
along than we were just a few years ago. One of the best things about
F/LOSS is that there are soo many projects breaking down proprietry walled
gardens, but providing interoperability with closed source produts/platforms.
This is providing users an escape path, allowing them to migrate to Fedora.

SAMBA is a great example of this. We want Fedora+libvirt to provide the
escape path for people running VMWare + Windows, and for this to work we
need to provide the libirt clients for Windows platforms. This enables
them to switch out VMWare in favour of Fedora + Xen/KVM, without having
to migrate their entire desktop environment from Windows to Linux at the
same time.

Daniel
--
|: Red Hat, Engineering, London -o- http://people.redhat.com/berrange/ :|
|: http://libvirt.org -o- http://virt-manager.org -o- http://ovirt.org :|
|: http://autobuild.org -o- http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :|
|: GnuPG: 7D3B9505 -o- F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 :|

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