Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?

[David Masover <ninja@slaphack.com>]

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First and foremost:  Hans, this is your project.  Someone willing to
replace entire APIs with things that feel like files is obviously not
afraid of creating something new.  So at the end of the day, it
shouldn't matter too much that it's in Debian Non-free, especially if
(assuming I heard correctly) XFree86 is also non-free.

But that's also your decision -- if you want to "allow plagarism",
that's also up to you.  I certainly can't make the call -- I'm just a kid[1]

Furthermore, I don't care how many credits you flash, as long as it
doesn't start lagging my ssh connections or creating huge logs.

It's important that credits be there.  However, as long as they can be
found by experienced users looking for them, and aren't actively hidden
("dark side of the moon" could be a lot farther away than
/usr/share/doc/reiser4-<version>/README.gz, considering that everyone
knows to look there).

It's not important that everyone see the credits, unless someone has a
severe case of vanity.  The only reason I can think of to force everyone
to see the credits without asking is to make Hans Reiser (and perhaps
the other <100 people who see the source) a household name.

What's important is that it's always possible to find the credits.  This
allows individuals to refer to those credits when searching for a new
job (or new funding, or a TV spot, whatever).  When I see credits flash
by my face, if I see the same name enough times, I might remember it.
Otherwise, it's only when I'm obsessive, or it's a single name.  I will
remember Hans anyway, because he's in the name.  I usually remember the
names of lead actors.  But I don't remember the names of the cameraman
in scene five, and it's unlikely if I did that I'd seriously consider
seeing another movie just because he shot a scene in it.

For the cameraman, it's really only important when someone's making a
new movie and they want a cameraman who's experienced in a particular
style.  Maybe I'm over-dramatizing, but if I hacked on reiser4, I'd be
in a similar circumstance -- I don't care if John Q. Public sees my
name, but maybe later I'd start my own project, and I'd refer to the
credits.

<offtopic level="slightly">
As for flashing info during the install, I'd rather have an actual pager
available on the same screen as the progress bar.  I've watched some
programs take so long to install that it showed me "You can use this
online, too!" or similar for half an hour.  On newer, faster machines,
I've seen programs install so fast that I just got a blur of
information.  The pager lets me read at my pace, as well as at my
machine's pace.
</offtopic>

Debian people:  If so many things are non-free, I say you need to either
relax or create some subclasses of non-free.  I like the reiser license,
I don't like the java license, and so I don't put java on until I have
to, but I put reiser on first (especially considering I have v4 as root
on one box).  It should be possible for the distro to make that choice
available.  And I speak of the "non-free" distro, since the "free" group
seems to turn up their noses at anything that doesn't make the cut.


That is the last you will hear from me on this subject (so reply to the
lists instead).  I don't currently have a girlfriend, and if I intend to
change that, I won't spend any more time ranting about what to do with a
list of names and email addresses.





[1]  I am 17, and will be 18 in January.  At some point I'll have to
stop flaunting my youth, but right now, I jump over multiple chairs on
every snack raid from my computer.

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