Non-commercial redistributable game data

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 05/17/2010 04:56 PM, Lubomir Rintel wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 16:45 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> On 05/17/2010 04:34 PM, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 15:36 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>>> My point is a bit different: I consider this mechanism to be a way to
>>>> *circumvent* rpm as means of packaging and it to be a way of encourage
>>>> *sloppyness*, *lazyness* and *carelessness*, which endangers Fedora's users.
>>>>
>>>> If FESCO has a little understanding, they would have noticed that
>>>> "mechanically packaging" game data into rpms and to ship them via  repos
>>>> is trivial. There is no need to add another mechanism for shipping
>>>> packages and to endanger users from the security risks this comes
>>>> attached with.
>>>>
>>>> Or differently: One fundamental key of rpm-based distros safety and
>>>> consistency has been not to allowing other means of installation.
>>>
>>> Ralf, I think we all agree with the fact that it is optimal to install
>>> game data as an rpm.  The problem is that, for any game that uses
>>> autodownloader, the data *cannot* be packaged in Fedora because of
>>> license reasons.
>>
>> Rpmfusion can easily package them.
>>
>> RH or Fedora are not required to be involved into this at all.
>
> Guess what, neither Fedora nor Red Hat is required to be involved in
> anything.
>
> If I understand the FESCO's was a trade-off; there's a lot of free
> software games that would be useless with a little help of
> badly-licensed pieces and FESCO decided that Fedora's mission is better
> accomplished if the games are as easily brought into state of being as
> easily installable and playable by a common user as it can be.
>
> That is not that uncommon. Ever heard of firmware blobs for the device
> drivers?
Yes, it's the stuff RH and FESCO had allowed to break the principles of 
"FLOSS" with, Fedora once was based on, based on the claim "firmware is 
no SW" - Any firmware developer will tell you this claim is simply untrue!

> Sure, there's a difference that those, even though lacking the
> source code, are distributable and this can be RPM-ized, but that's a
> different issue and was discussed around here already. The principle
> remains the same; a bit of a trade off for a rather big improvement.

Which improvements? Locally installing improperly packaged stuff, and 
reinvent mechanisms to assure consistencies, which rpm already provides 
if this stuff was properly packages as rpms?

I really see no need for this autodownloader - Package it it rpms, if 
their licenses permits it or leave this stuff alone.

> Be
> it a greatly improved hardware support, or improved experience of game
> players.
I have to vehemently disagree. What RH has done with the firmware is 
having betrayed the OSS community, by claiming "Firmware is not SW".
Though it has improved the uneducated user's "experience" this was a 
slap into the face of OSS-developers.

What you now are doing now, to me is throwing overboard system 
consistency, packaging etc. Certainly, any arbitrary user has the 
liberty to install any arbitrary binary blobs into his HOME (if he knows 
how to do so), but doing so automatically is simply careless.

Ralf