Re: [Hampshire] Re:Application installers

> Why should Debian assist you in violating their core beliefs?

Because if they don't, code will be released that will not be available on
the Debian platform.

It's all very well digging your heels in and refusing to play with others
until they follow your rules - but if you do, they'll go play somewhere
else.

So do you think Debian has enough software? Would you rather more software
was ported to that platform - even if the developers aren't yet ready for
you to see their code? Or would you rather sit in a corner without that
software?

> If you open source your code I am sure someone will give you a hand
> getting it working on certain platforms but to claim Debian should
> make it easy for you to do something that they may well disagree with
> is absurd.

No, it is absurd to try to prevent a user from running the software *he*
wants to run on *his* machine. That's the nature of the Freedoms we
espouse.

>From time to time - thankfully infrequently - some of that code will be
closed-source. Are you content denying users the ability to get at that
code, even though they want to?

> Of course the best bet is to Open Source/Free your code and let the
> distro specific packagers fix it for you.

It's not my code. I don't have the authority to take that decision. I have
managed to get it out in a manner that allows Debian users to use it at no
cost. Would you rather I took the files off the FTP site?

> There was also a project the aimed to provide a way of packaging it
> once and then running it on any distro I can't for the life of me
> remember what it was called though.

I've yet to see any of those that solve more problems than they create...
:-(

Vic.