[php-maint] ITP: php-recaptcha -- PHP interface to recaptcha.net

[Thomas Goirand]

Marco d'Itri wrote:
> It is another long-standing Debian tradition to tell non-developers to
> STFU when they try to change the meaning of the DFSG.

IMHO, this is not my case, read further.

> You can find the details in the last 6 years of the debian-legal@
> archive...

If you have mind reading the link that Zack took time to send you, you
might have noticed that I have been approved by my DAM, and that I am
just waiting for my account creations. But that's not the point.

Like Yves-Alexis Perez, I can't help myself to write that I believe you
have been quite rude when writing this:

> You are not even a Debian developer so please refrain from trying to
> re-interpret the DFSG to suite your opinions.

I have tried to be as open minded as possible, and asking opinions of
others, and I don't think I am re-interpreting the DFSG here. IMHO, the
debate is all about how to consider the recaptcha service (eg: a service
you connect to, or a remote procedure).

I don't think this has anything to do with being a DD or not: users,
maintainers and so on also have concerns about freeness, and I strongly
believe that this kind of debate shall be open to anyone. Because I took
the time to package php-text-captcha, which has been ready for MONTHS,
it might also give me a bit more of legitimacy to comment about a PHP
module that I refused to work with, because I considered that there was
a more free alternative. Have you done such a work to consider what php
captcha module should be in Debian?

Some made the comparison (like you just did) with IM clients, specific
browsers (like youtube clients and others), but I don't believe this
applies here. To my opinion, I believe this is a remotely executed
procedure, stored on a non-free server that we wont ever control, which
makes php-recaptcha a good candidate for contrib. This is a lot more
complex debate than what you pretend.

The link you have past is just someone expressing his opinion, with
sentences starting by "I think". Where exactly did you see that was
written in the stone of the DFSG? Also, if I am not mistaking, this
discussion is talking about an ICQ client. I already express myself,
writing that I don't think this matches the case of php-recaptcha. We
are talking about a remote procedure on a software, that has no valid
reason to be used as a service, and not embedded on the server that you
use. If you believe that there's a valid reason, I welcome you to
express yourself about it.

Thomas

P.S: This is unrelated to the license of the software itself, and to the
discussion that has to be technical and about principles we enforce in
Debian, but recaptcha.net is using the user's input to digitize content,
without being very clear about how this "free work" is being used. Truth
is, it's quite obvious that Google is using it for it's online library
that it will never share with others. I believe this is evilness, and I
am against it. I also don't like at all the way Google managed to
dismiss copyrights of many authors, injunctions from many governments,
pretending to be above many laws, and so on. Recaptcha is
yet-another-tool for this evilness. Having something like a "free as
free beer" API, a "free as free speech" software to use the API, but
keeping the digitized work for themselves, and keeping the server side
code closed, is yet another trap that I *strongly refuse* to dive into.
If Debian is not the entity to refuse/complain about it, then who will?
Do we really care about software freeness? I hope we (as an entity)
still do, and I *know* many of us still do.