[Pkg-meego-maintainers] Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?

[Jeremiah C. Foster]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:45:03PM +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> 
> > That's basically a superset of what I wrote on IRC after the initial
> > email happened (basically, I wrote something like: asking upstream for
> > permission is stupid, it's their trademark, and as long as nobody wants
> > to sue you, everything is fine).

While this approach may be suitable in many circumstances, it is not a
legal strategy.

> > I don't know why OdyX decided to do this, there was no prior discussion
> > of this, and I never supported this, and I am sure most of the others
> > did not support this either.

I support maintainers and developers using common sense to try to find
a solution to this problem. I think creating dialog and discussion is
an appropriate common sense approach, I don't think OdyX has done
anything wrong here.
 
> I decided to send out this mail because I felt that it was the right thing 
> to do, given the problems enlightened by the Smeegol release, because those 
> issues appeared to me as worrying for the packaging of the MeeGo software. I 
> tried to make it clear that I was bringing those issues up on my sole name 
> and not as a representative of anything (although I reckon that I might have 
> failed at that).
> 
> Now Steve's mail and yours both put some clearer light on the issue and make 
> me understand the various implications better: thank go to both of you for 
> that.
> 
> But now said mail is out. The responsability of its sending and the 
> implications thereof are on my shoulders. Furthermore, I acknowledge that
>   1) I should have discussed its content, aim and wording beforehand,
>   2) asking for permission when a permission grant is useless is not the 
> thing to do.
> Now how do I / do we proceed ?
> 
> Does anyone (team or person) need a wider apology than this one ? Is a 
> coordinated answer from Debian needed to Ibrahim's mail needed/wanted ? I 
> can prepare it and make sure it gets proofread first (Steve already agreed 
> to do that, but it could be done more publicly).

I'd like to think that no more apologies are required. I think you've
acted in good faith in an attempt to handle a fairly complex issue. If
we want to reach a consensus I feel we may need to minimize the amount
of blame passed out and instead focus instead on constructive,
positive steps forward, like actually packaging the software. :-) I
for one do not need any apology from OdyX.

At the same time I recognize Steve's wise email pointing out that we
are dealing with an issue that might undermine the precedent Debian
has set; i.e. packaging of software is de facto beyond the realm of
trademark. Were Debian to make a calculated retreat from that position
it might undermine a significant portion of the software Debian has
already packaged and could affect the packaging of software for Free
Software distributions in general with unintended consequences.

> And for the packaging: it basically stopped because I fell out of time. But 
> what would happen if a "libmeegotouch" package lands in NEW ?

Let's move forward and trust that the existing Debian processes will
flag any issues that haven't be considered yet. 

Regards,

Jeremiah