reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[mjt]

Hi

I know this is the wrong forum perhaps, but AFAIK the reiser4progs
maintainer(s) read this list..

Where's version 0.5.4 of the package?-)

Now if it's totally GPL, there shouldn't even be that issue.

Just showing my concern if there are segfaults and stuff flying
around..

-- 
mjt

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Chris Dukes]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 10:41:20PM +0300, Markus Törnqvist wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I know this is the wrong forum perhaps, but AFAIK the reiser4progs
> maintainer(s) read this list..
> 
> Where's version 0.5.4 of the package?-)

It would be better if you put the "bug" of a new upstream release
in the debian bug tracking system through 'reportbug reiser4progs'.
Currently that bug is not reported.
> 
> Now if it's totally GPL, there shouldn't even be that issue.
> 
> Just showing my concern if there are segfaults and stuff flying
> around..

Well, if you'd submitted a debian bug report, the maintainer should
note on the bug report if such is a hindrancy to releasing a new
upstream version.

-- 
Chris Dukes
Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Domenico Andreoli]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 10:41:20PM +0300, Markus Törnqvist wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I know this is the wrong forum perhaps, but AFAIK the reiser4progs
> maintainer(s) read this list..

yes, i'm here listening in the darkness...

> Where's version 0.5.4 of the package?-)

reiser4progs 0.5.4 is from snapshot 2004.04.21-internal.testing.fixed,
which doesn't look for common people, hence it is not in unstable.

indeed it is available in debian experimental.

http://packages.debian.org/reiser4progs

if you don't know what experimental is, please read [0].

> Now if it's totally GPL, there shouldn't even be that issue.

really? i still have to finish reading the thread :/

did Hans really move to GPL?!?

cheers
domenico

[0] http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-resources#s-experimental

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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[mjt]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 09:33:05PM +0200, Domenico Andreoli wrote:

>> I know this is the wrong forum perhaps, but AFAIK the reiser4progs
>> maintainer(s) read this list..
>yes, i'm here listening in the darkness...

Some Debian developers are quite anal about these issues, indeed,
I got a bit flamed :)

But still, I didn't have your email and this seemed the proper, although
wrong from a debian point of view, channel to ask...

>reiser4progs 0.5.4 is from snapshot 2004.04.21-internal.testing.fixed,
>which doesn't look for common people, hence it is not in unstable.

Maybe Namesys should just "release it officially" then. Although it's
pretty much the de facto bug-fixed version. Should be enough to get
it into unstable, imo.

>indeed it is available in debian experimental.
>http://packages.debian.org/reiser4progs

I compiled it myself. It's not difficult to
cp -a ../reiser4progs-0.5.3/debian . and do the rest manually ;)

>really? i still have to finish reading the thread :/
>did Hans really move to GPL?!?

I think I mis-remembered a bit. Or wishful thinking ;)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00443.html

"If Debian offers to provide credits in practice but not theory, and 
there is some possibility of getting into a debian installer in the near 
future, then I can probably lose a little and risk a little and put both 
progs and kernel code into GPL V2 for now despite it being a license with  
flaws that beg for fixing."

There is the if in the beginning. I don't know how official this must
be...

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00456.html
"FWIW, I would like to publicly thank Hans for his decision to release the
whole shebang under a GPLv2 license."

FWIW?
Anyway, I actually bothered to check the README.
"
Reiser4 is hereby licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.
[...]
The portions of them owned by Hans
Reiser, or authorized to be licensed by him, have been in the past,
and likely will be in the future, licensed to other parties under
other licenses.
[...]
If you interpret
the GPL as not allowing those additional licensing options, you read
it wrongly, and Richard Stallman agrees with me, when carefully read
you can see that those restrictions on additional terms do not apply
to the owner of the copyright, and my interpretation of this shall
govern for this license.
"

But there is the single little catch:
"Finally, nothing in this license shall be interpreted to allow you to
fail to fairly credit me, or to remove my credits such as by creating
a front end that hides my credits from the user or renaming mkfs.reiser4"

I couldn't find any data on the licensing in the reiser4progs sources,
of which I just took a snapshot.

http://namesys.com/legalese.html

That does not take a stance for or against GPL, really...

-- 
mjt

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Amit Shah]

Markus Törnqvist wrote:

> But there is the single little catch:
> "Finally, nothing in this license shall be interpreted to allow you to
> fail to fairly credit me, or to remove my credits such as by creating
> a front end that hides my credits from the user or renaming mkfs.reiser4"

This isn't DFSG-free.

-- 
Amit Shah
http://amitshah.nav.to/

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[mjt]

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 03:02:32PM +0530, Amit Shah wrote:

>This isn't DFSG-free.

So is the case that Debian must somehow say they will honor Hans'
request to make it GPL/DFSG free?

Well.. how can it not be DFSG free if it says that it's GPLv2 and
Stallman agrees with what Hans said?

Or is Debian more about DFSG than GPL?

*sigh* this is worse than the metas thread, that was at least a practical
issue, this is semantics and what I interpret as people interpreting
licenses like the Devil interpreting the bible.

-- 
mjt

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Hubert Chan]

License> "Finally, nothing in this license shall be interpreted to allow
License> you to fail to fairly credit me, or to remove my credits such
License> as by creating a front end that hides my credits from the user
License> or renaming mkfs.reiser4"

>>>>> "Markus" == Markus Törnqvist <mjt@nysv.org> writes:

Markus> On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 03:02:32PM +0530, Amit Shah wrote:
Amit> This isn't DFSG-free.

Markus> So is the case that Debian must somehow say they will honor
Markus> Hans' request to make it GPL/DFSG free?

No.  Debian's actions do not affect the DFSG free-ness of a license.

Markus> Well.. how can it not be DFSG free if it says that it's GPLv2

It is GPLv2 with "clarifications".

Markus> and Stallman agrees with what Hans said?

Stallman agrees with Hans' right to dual-/triple-/etc. license.  I
haven't heard his opinion on disallowing the removal or hiding of
credits.  Disallowing the removal of copyright notices is a standard
restriction, but credits isn't that clear.

Disallowing the renaming of mkfs.reiser4 could be a problem -- if
someone writes a hobby filesystem from scratch (or based on some ideas
from Reiser4), but uses significant (or even insignificant, but still
enough for copyright to be claimed) code from mkfs.reiser4, he may be
compelled to keep his program named "mkfs.reiser4", even though his
filesystem is not compatible in any way with Reiser4.  This violates
DFSG clause 3 ("Derived works").

IANAL, but to me, disallowing creating a frontend that hides the
credits seems more like a _use_ restriction than a _copy_ restriction,
and hence smells more like a EULA than a copyright license.  The author
of the front end does not have to do any copying or modification of
mkfs.reiser4 in order to create the front end.

Markus> Or is Debian more about DFSG than GPL?

Yes.  Debian and the FSF seem to have slightly different opinions on
what "Free" is.  For example, the FSF's GNU FDL (Free Documentation
License) is said to be non-DFSG-free.  But the GPL with no other
modifications or clarifications or interpretations is generally
regarded as DFSG-free.

-- 
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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Hans Reiser]

I haven't gotten around to updating the license.  I will, after dealing 
with some other things first....

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Hubert Chan]

>>>>> "Hans" == Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com> writes:

Hans> I haven't gotten around to updating the license.  I will, after
Hans> dealing with some other things first....

Thanks.  I can't speak on behalf of the Debian maintainer, but I'm sure
that he will respect any (reasonable) requests that you make.  Debian
people tend to be reasonable nice people -- with a few exceptions.

-- 
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Domenico Andreoli]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 04:36:33PM -0400, Hubert Chan wrote:
> >>>>> "Hans" == Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com> writes:
> 
> Hans> I haven't gotten around to updating the license.  I will, after
> Hans> dealing with some other things first....
> 
> Thanks.  I can't speak on behalf of the Debian maintainer, but I'm sure
> that he will respect any (reasonable) requests that you make.  Debian
> people tend to be reasonable nice people -- with a few exceptions.

i never thanked Hans for licensing future releases of reiserfs/reiser4
tools under plain GPL, i'm doing it now. i'm appreciating it a lot,
having stuff in main archive always makes things a lot easier.

sadly if the request is to make reiser4 available in the installer of
sarge, i can't assure it will be followed :((

this is partially my fault, i never studied the installation stuff and
currently i'm not able to push reiser4 in there. this can be a matter of
few days of work, but i can't promise anything. recently i have not too
much time for debian, fortunately my packages are in pretty good shape
(i'll shoot to the first one talking about curl...;) ).

what's not my fault is the missing support for grub, something i've
never been able to make work. this is required to have reiser4 in the
sarge installer, otherwise machine will not boot after the install.

when i asked to the installer team [0] if it was reasonaible to include
reiser4 i was told it is probably too young. something can be still
done anyway, i'll work on it.

what i can surely do as sign of my gratefulness towards Hans is to
maintain an apt source for sarge that will always provide the most
recent versions of all the reiserfs/reiser4 tools. if reiser4 does not
enter in the sarge installer i'll provide also an alternative way to
install a sarge system on a reiser4 partition. sarge will always have
the best support for reiserfs/reiser4 i can provide.

the only thing i can't guarantee is a strict timetable, i make this
works in my free time.

cheers
domenico

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/06/msg00414.html

-----[ Domenico Andreoli, aka cavok
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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[mjt]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 11:50:21PM +0200, Domenico Andreoli wrote:

>when i asked to the installer team [0] if it was reasonaible to include
>reiser4 i was told it is probably too young. something can be still
>done anyway, i'll work on it.

I tried to build a Reiser4-enabled Sarge installer many time units ago.
It didn't work out. It built but I can't remember why it failed on me...

Maybe I should try it again. If I can find all the stuff I wrote for it.

If I didn't rm -rf it, I hope it is of some use, or maybe so I could
see why it failed. Of course it's possible it was just bad karma code :)

>recent versions of all the reiserfs/reiser4 tools. if reiser4 does not
>enter in the sarge installer i'll provide also an alternative way to
>install a sarge system on a reiser4 partition. sarge will always have
>the best support for reiserfs/reiser4 i can provide.

Maybe an alternative installer image?
Standard Debian with Reiser4 on top. That's what I thought about
providing.

>the only thing i can't guarantee is a strict timetable, i make this
>works in my free time.

At least you have _some_ free time ;)

-- 
mjt

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Hubert Chan]

>>>>> "Markus" == Markus Törnqvist <mjt@nysv.org> writes:

Markus> On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 11:50:21PM +0200, Domenico Andreoli wrote:

[...]

Domenico> recent versions of all the reiserfs/reiser4 tools. if reiser4
Domenico> does not enter in the sarge installer i'll provide also an
Domenico> alternative way to install a sarge system on a reiser4
Domenico> partition. sarge will always have the best support for
Domenico> reiserfs/reiser4 i can provide.

Markus> Maybe an alternative installer image?  Standard Debian with
Markus> Reiser4 on top. That's what I thought about providing.

Well, Woody has the bf24 boot image.  I'd imagine someone could manage
to wedge in a workable reiser4-capable installer somehow, as long as
they make it clear that it is experimental, unsupported, and may cause
your hard drive to explode, or unleash the forces of darkness and
precipitate the end of the world.

-- 
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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Domenico Andreoli]

On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 12:56:53AM +0300, Markus Törnqvist wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 11:50:21PM +0200, Domenico Andreoli wrote:
> 
> >when i asked to the installer team [0] if it was reasonaible to include
> >reiser4 i was told it is probably too young. something can be still
> >done anyway, i'll work on it.
> 
> I tried to build a Reiser4-enabled Sarge installer many time units ago.
> It didn't work out. It built but I can't remember why it failed on me...
> 
> Maybe I should try it again. If I can find all the stuff I wrote for it.
> 
> If I didn't rm -rf it, I hope it is of some use, or maybe so I could
> see why it failed. Of course it's possible it was just bad karma code :)

good, let me know

> >recent versions of all the reiserfs/reiser4 tools. if reiser4 does not
> >enter in the sarge installer i'll provide also an alternative way to
> >install a sarge system on a reiser4 partition. sarge will always have
> >the best support for reiserfs/reiser4 i can provide.
> 
> Maybe an alternative installer image?
> Standard Debian with Reiser4 on top. That's what I thought about
> providing.

exactly

ciao
domenico

-----[ Domenico Andreoli, aka cavok
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Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[mjt]

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 10:28:21PM -0400, Hubert Chan wrote:

>It is GPLv2 with "clarifications".

IMO clarifications should clarify the license, not make it muddier ;)
Maybe a modification would be a better word for this.

>Markus> Or is Debian more about DFSG than GPL?
>Yes.  Debian and the FSF seem to have slightly different opinions on
>what "Free" is.  For example, the FSF's GNU FDL (Free Documentation
>License) is said to be non-DFSG-free.  But the GPL with no other
>modifications or clarifications or interpretations is generally
>regarded as DFSG-free.

This was the most important issue of my mail and now I stand
corrected and wiser.

<angry>
So stop calling it Debian GNU/linux. Maybe a better name would be
Debian DFSG/Linux. Just because of the FDL.
Or brainwash all the geeks of the world to adhere to a united
view of freedom.
</angry>

I already saw Hans' reply to this.

Thank you Hans, you did the respectable thing. Drop by to Finland
and I'll buy you a beer :)

Let's consider this case closed and buried, please.

-- 
mjt

Re: reiser4progs 0.5.4 for Debian

[Hubert Chan]

>>>>> "Markus" == Markus Törnqvist <mjt@nysv.org> writes:

[...]

Markus> <angry> So stop calling it Debian GNU/linux. Maybe a better name
Markus> would be Debian DFSG/Linux. Just because of the FDL.  Or
Markus> brainwash all the geeks of the world to adhere to a united view
Markus> of freedom.  </angry>

I think that most geeks have an agreement on what "free" is in broad
terms.  There is just some disagreement in some of the details.  The
DFSG (which, by the way, is the precursor to the Open Source
Definition[1]) is at least an attempt to write down the details.  The
FSF has their "four freedoms"[1].  They agree on most of the big points,
but there are some small differences.

[1] http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php
[2] http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

BTW, they call it GNU/Linux because it uses the GNU system/utilities.
Not because of any philosophical reason.  (As a side note, Linus seems
to have slightly different notions of "free"-ness as well, in the sense
that he seems to be more pragmatic in his approach.  See, for example,
his use of BitKeeper.)

Markus> I already saw Hans' reply to this.

Markus> Thank you Hans, you did the respectable thing.

I agree.  Thank you, Hans.

Markus> Let's consider this case closed and buried, please.

Agreed.

-- 
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
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