[maemo-developers] Is mauku open source, i.e free or is in non-free?

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Tuesday 26 January 2010 21:07:57 Henrik Hedberg wrote:
>     Mauku 2.0 is not free as open source software (Mauku 0.x was under
> GPL). It is mainly based on Microfeed library written by me and licensed
> under LGPL, but the application itself is not licensed under any OSI
> compliant license.

Mauku needs to move out of free.  As the Microfeed library is LGPL it can stay 
in free -- of course, you could choose to remove it if you wish but, also, 
any other community member could choose to add it back if they wished.  For 
that reason, I would ask you to leave it in free.

>     My opinion is that QA in the non-free section should work as it is
> working in the free section currently. In most cases, testers are doing
> their work without really reviewing the source code. The same criteria
> could be applied for non-free software. If there are community members
> wanting to support and use non-free software in their devices, they
> should be given a change to do that.

I think you are right: non-free should have an extras-testing as well as 
extras, and it should have the same promotion process for moving apps from 
extras-testing to extras.  As you say, that would depend on there being 
sufficient community members interested in non-free to give apps the 
necessary votes.

The difference would be that source packages are not required and that binary 
packages are loaded directly into extras-testing non-free (not from 
extras-devel, and not using an autobuilder).

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to make it to the top of the priority list for 
the maemo.org team for a while as non-free is not a major priority.  
Personally, although I usually limit myself to free software, I have no 
problem with non-free apps for those who want them and see them as increasing 
the appeal of the device so I would like to make sure the infrastructure 
exists to support them.  But I still think this is unlikely to be available 
soon.

My suggestion is that, for now, entry into extras non-free is handled on an 
ad-hoc basis, without a QA process.  My suggested process is that entry is 
requested by the author on this list.  There may be some discussion (for 
example asking what testing has been performed or whether any community 
members can vouch for the quality or the author).  If, after allowing a short 
time for any discussion, the council (as community representatives) agree to 
the entry then the packages are manually moved into the repository by one of 
the repository maintainers.  This process obviously favours packages from 
known community members and is not ideal but might work in the short term.

In this particular case, the application is well known and is currently in 
extras so I see no problem with moving it immediately into extras non-free.  
For updates, we would use the temporary process I outline above.

Graham