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Flandry's Avatar
Flandry is offline Flandry
2010-03-30 , 04:09
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#1
This post is to open a dialogue about what is and isn't acceptable in the repository. It is an issue that has been touched on somewhat before e.g. the Nintendo emulator saber-rattling incident, and was brought up in a thread in Games.

While that particular invocation of the topic had ulterior motives, the point is still a valid one, and it is this:

If we have a strict anti-piracy policy, why do the repos contain "plenty of copyrighted home computer rom images", proprietary calculator ROM images, &tc?

I remember reading that we're not going for complete DFSG compliance, but what, then?
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Texrat is offline Texrat
2010-03-30 , 04:50
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#2
It was my understanding ROMs should not be in maemo.org repositories.
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clasificado is offline clasificado
2010-03-30 , 05:08
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#3
Maybe we could list the suspected packages to make a revision with the developers.
 
lma is offline lma
2010-03-30 , 05:25
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#4
Originally Posted by Flandry View Post
If we have a strict anti-piracy policy
We do.

why do the repos contain "plenty of copyrighted home computer rom images", proprietary calculator ROM images, &tc?
They shouldn't. If they do (sorry, I haven't installed any emulators) the packages should be removed until they comply with the QA policy. Please also bring it to the testsquad's attention because it would mean they are not testing properly.

I remember reading that we're not going for complete DFSG compliance, but what, then?
That's orthogonal to this. Closed-source in extras (non-free) may be fine, copyright infringement isn't.
 

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eiffel is offline eiffel
2010-03-30 , 11:41
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#5
It's better to describe these as "proprietary home computer rom images" instead of "copyrighted home computer rom images".

Most of the software in the repository is copyrighted, but it's legal to distribute it when it's open-source licensed rather than proprietary. Terminology matters.
 

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Flandry's Avatar
Flandry is offline Flandry
2010-03-30 , 13:07
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#6
Originally Posted by lma View Post
We do.
Yes, i'm familiar with that but understandably confused due to some very popular exceptions by well known developers.

Anyway, as a point of curiosity, if an app fails to pass testing because of this particular point, does it in actual practice get removed from the repository?

That's orthogonal to this. Closed-source in extras (non-free) may be fine, copyright infringement isn't.
That is part of it:
- Free redistribution.

But obviously not the part that was considered optional here.

Originally Posted by eiffel View Post
It's better to describe these as "proprietary home computer rom images" instead of "copyrighted home computer rom images".

Most of the software in the repository is copyrighted, but it's legal to distribute it when it's open-source licensed rather than proprietary. Terminology matters.
Yes, it was a third-party quote.
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Unofficial PR1.3/Meego 1.1 FAQ
***
Classic example of arbitrary Nokia decision making. Couldn't just fallback to the no brainer of tagging with lat/lon if network isn't accessible, could you Nokia?
MAME: an arcade in your pocket
Accelemymote: make your accelerometer more joy-ful
Last edited by Flandry; 2010-03-30 at 14:06. Reason: Added more glaringly obvious references in form of links
 
zwer's Avatar
zwer is offline zwer
2010-03-30 , 13:42
Posts: 455 | Thanked: 782 times | Joined on Nov 2009 @ Netherlands
#7
There are proprietary/copyrighted ROMs in the repos?!? I wasn't aware of that. If yes, they should be, of course, removed. However emulators do not break any law out there (as long as their copyright holder has nothing against them being in the repos) so those should stay.
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nidO is offline nidO
2010-03-30 , 13:46
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#8
We could probably do with details/examples on exactly what packages are breaking the rules here - There are plenty of emulators in the repos, which are perfectly fine to be there, but to my knowledge none of them actually come with the ROMs included?
 
mikkov is offline mikkov
2010-03-30 , 13:50
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#9
Originally Posted by Flandry View Post
If we have a strict anti-piracy policy, why do the repos contain "plenty of copyrighted home computer rom images", proprietary calculator ROM images, &tc?

If that's a quote from somewhere, where? Apparently somebody has a list of packages, which packages are the problem here?
 
Flandry's Avatar
Flandry is offline Flandry
2010-03-30 , 14:02
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#10
Edited above post but for visibility but here's the reason i came to think perhaps our policy was a bit permissive:

And it really doesn't take too much digging in games to find other offenders. Here's the example given by the person cited above:
Originally Posted by Master of Gizmo View Post
The vice emulator (being just one example) is distributed by maemo.org incl. the complete set of rom images of the entire family of commodore 8 bit home computers incl. all rom images used in peripherals like the floppy drives. We are talking about the entire machine code of an entire generation of computers from the 80s.
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Unofficial PR1.3/Meego 1.1 FAQ
***
Classic example of arbitrary Nokia decision making. Couldn't just fallback to the no brainer of tagging with lat/lon if network isn't accessible, could you Nokia?
MAME: an arcade in your pocket
Accelemymote: make your accelerometer more joy-ful
 
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