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

[From: Henrik Hedberg]

Jeremiah Foster wrote:

> Bug #7505 asks if mauku is open or closed. According to the bug report, it looks pretty closed.
...
> What should we do here? Move this to non-free?

    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.

    I am very aware of the meaning "free" here. Mauku was uploaded into 
the free section because there was (is) no non-free repository in 
Extras. However, the community insisted to close all external 
repositories and use Extras instead (done that). In addition, Ovi Store 
was not (is not, it is still beta) available for distribution channel.

    Last time I saw someone mentioning something about the non-free 
section in Extras, there were opinions that (some?) members of the 
community do not want to spend their time doing QA for non-free 
software. As far as I know, that was the end of the discussion. There 
have not been any discussion, announcements or instructions how to 
really handle QA in the non-free section.

    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.

    My humble intention was to provide my software for Maemo users (and 
maemo.org members) through the channel they are aware and in a way that 
should cause least problems. Feel free to remove it (completely, please, 
in that case) or move to non-free section in Extras (not in extras-devel 
or extras-testing) and provide a guidance how to upgrade it later. 
Naturally, the latter is better.

    BR,

    Henrik (author of Mauku)

    P.S. I have been very busy lately, and I have had to make decisions 
how to spend my time. Unfortunately, the confusion and unreadiness of 
Maemo (and maemo.org) software distribution channels was one reason why 
I have dropped the priority of Mauku project. Those essential building 
blocks should be in good shape in order to attract developers (both open 
source and commercial), but unfortunately that is not the case here now. 
I really hope things will be get better...

-- 
    Henrik Hedberg  -  http://www.henrikhedberg.net/