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Should x11-wm/ion3 be removed from the tree?
yes
71%
 71%  [ 66 ]
no
28%
 28%  [ 26 ]
Total Votes : 92

Author Message
mabi
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 3:55 pm    Post subject: x11-wm/ion3's future Reply with quote

Hi folks.
On the gentoo-dev mailing list there's been a http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/49030 RFC on the license change made to the ion-3 package.
This thread quickly had calls for the entire removal of ion-3 from our tree. As this is a serious step, i'd like to get a broader opinion by involving gentoo's userbase. The question is: Should gentoo carry ion-3 in the future?

Bits of background, so you're not voting out of the blue:
Several people have called the new license (contained in the link above) unacceptable and totally outragous. Debian and Archlinux have declared the license not compatible with their policy and intend to fork or abondon ion-3. I've an ebuild for the just released ion-3rc-20070506 on my hard drive, which conforms to the newly added license. I can't guarantee that gentoo will meet the license in the future.

A few more links, already contained in the message referenced above and in the following messages:
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/ion-general/2007-May/002013.html
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/ion-general/2007-April/001959.html
http://archlinux.org/pipermail/tur-users/2007-April/004634.html
http://womble.decadent.org.uk/blog/renaming-of-ion3
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=69522

This poll is open for 14 days because, conforming to the new license, we have to provide an updated version within 28 days, so it's gotta be a quick decision.
So far, we have 10 developers in favour of "yes", 1 developers in favour of "no". Now it's your turn :)
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xanas3712
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think from reading the ML responses this guy sounds like a pain to work with. I understand the decision either way. I'm not personally using it, I guess I should try it out while it's in portage to see if it's worth all the hassle.

EDIT: seems reasonably useful to me, never used a purely tiling WM before but I can see why someone would just from using it 5 minutes. That said, If the majority of devs are for removal so am I, it doesn't seem that special, and it's not like no one using gentoo can compile from source or write their own ebuild for it.
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lk
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have voted for 'no'. Renaming ion3 to the name Debian will use should be enough, imho.
And moreover i really like my ion3 ;)
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vonr
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 10:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This seems like a big hassle to me, as the developer's clauses, or rather demands make it quite hard for distros to maintain it. Really, the 'update within x days' thing is retarded. Dump it and let users (or lusers, as the developer likes to call them on the ion3 mailing list) put it in their overlay.

Also, I like vapier's suggestion for the package.mask entry:
Quote:
# upstream is braindead, ask them to get a transplant

Indeed.
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krigav
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 11:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Remove it!

I think that some people really don't understand what the whole open source thing is about :D
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Paapaa
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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 11:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting. It seems that the real problem is that the author hates "font blurring" AKA anti-aliased fonts. And he is pissed of because ion3 is distributed with a patch adding support to Xft (or something like that, anyway):

http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/b/archives/2006/03/17/T20_15_31/
http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/faq/fonts.html

I voted Yes, it should be removed until the author starts to use a more sane license.
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wildhorse
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 12:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The USPTO lists ION3 as trademark of Centric Group, filed 21.12.2004. I have not searched for any EU trademark or anywhere else. But maybe with all the publicity raised by the author, it could be that the application will be renamed anyway. :D
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ColdWind
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Voted yes.

If all major distributions punt this package, maybe upstream changes its licenses to something sane.
Right now, I'd vote to move ion3 to an overlay and put the debianish-fork on the tree.
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mitschel
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How many of you voted yes and use ion3 as well? I like ion a lot and use it for more than 2 years now.
I can see where your problem with the developer is, but as long as there is no true alternative, I vote NO!
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ColdWind
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mitschel wrote:
How many of you voted yes and use ion3 as well? I like ion a lot and use it for more than 2 years now.
I can see where your problem with the developer is, but as long as there is no true alternative, I vote NO!


I voted yes and I use ion3.

It's an excellent piece of software, but it doesn't mean that its author can enforce such stupid rules to package mantainers. As said in gentoo-devel ML, the "28-days clause" is waaay more against freedom than "closed source software", it's not about "pure free software", it's about an abusive and non-sense clause.

That's a pain for developers. But we, the users, have also problems with the "no patches clause",
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Paapaa
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And all this crap because he doesn't want people to use anti-aliased fonts. Goes beyond my understanding. :?
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Naib
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

freeze it at whatever was the last version that didn't go draconian. Or did the new licence get put on all versions?
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ch05en
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use it and I would like to keep on using it.

I would like to see it forked at the last sane license. Look at Xorg/XFree86 now...
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ColdWind
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 9:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naib wrote:
freeze it at whatever was the last version that didn't go draconian. Or did the new licence get put on all versions?


It's simpler. License is LGPL so it can't be changed. The code is free, but the names "Ion" and "Ion3" isn't (and even this is questionable because it's not clear that the author has actually a registered trademark). It'd be enough if someone forks it changing its name (Debian is on the way).
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Skymotz
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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fork and forget(the original). like
fire and forget...
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_pF_
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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's an normative and political reaction here against the ion3 developer who doesn't want his creation to be patched ultimately to be like Gnome or KDE or others on that over-trodden and abortive path.
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ch05en
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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_pF_ wrote:
There's an normative and political reaction here against the ion3 developer who doesn't want his creation to be patched ultimately to be like Gnome or KDE or others on that over-trodden and abortive path.



‘I detest what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ --Voltaire

s/say/do/g

It's free. You can't stop people doing what they want to it, and neither should you be able to.
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mikegpitt
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was all ready to vote no to keep it in portage, until I actually read the new license. Most of it seems fine... the new branding stuff sounds like Mozilla's take on their copyrights... Some points get a little nit-picky, but not terrible. However, the floor drops open with this little clause:
Quote:
Distributions: For example, suppose an aggregate distribution of software
provides a `installpkg` command for installing packages. Then the action
`installpkg ion3` (resp. `installpkg ion`) should always install the
latest release of Ion3 (resp. the latest stable release), online
connectivity provided.
How can they possibly expect distro's to follow this? Gentoo would need to always push out "stable" releases whenever ion feels like making one. "Stable" is not stable until it has been tested by gentoo for some time, which is why unless you run ~x86 your software will always be slightly out of date.

I would remove ion immediately. Ion is not the most popular wm, so a mass distro pull may make them rethink their license...


Last edited by mikegpitt on Wed May 16, 2007 9:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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vonr
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mitschel wrote:
How many of you voted yes and use ion3 as well? I like ion a lot and use it for more than 2 years now.
I can see where your problem with the developer is, but as long as there is no true alternative, I vote NO!

Whether one is using ion3 or not is not really relevant with regard to the package's retarded licensing scheme. Besides, this is not about Gentoo prohibiting you to install ion3. It's about whether Gentoo should distribute a package with an "upgrade within x days, or else"-statement in its license.
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_pF_
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

vonr wrote:
Whether one is using ion3 or not is not really relevant

Pragmatically it is relevant, because that those that don't use ion3 could not care less if it goes or stays and can freely exercise their political prejudices.
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_pF_
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ch05en wrote:
You can't stop people doing what they want to it, and neither should you be able to.


Do what you like, but don't disrespect ion3's creator by weaselly calling your own abortion "ion3" too if it greatly differs or diverges from the ion3 philosophy.
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xanas3712
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When someone considers others modifying their software to be "disrespect" or "weaselly" they really should consider doing something other than open source software.
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bruzzler
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, as someone heavily using ion3 i definitely vote for no. Gentoo is about diversity, if the guy wants an elog message saying don't come bugging me if something goes wrong, that's fine. The gentoo forums have been proven invaluable for solving problems with gentoo, this guy i think doesn't even have a forum for ion3. So all the "support" was imho done within gentoo forums.

Isn't all this kinda similar to the gaim/pidgin issue? Every time I install one of these, I see a message that warns about complain to gentoo, not the original devs.

It would be nice if this package would be kept because there is user demand for it, not removed because people who don't use it are pissed with license changes.

-Bernhard
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xanas3712
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If that were all he were asking for I think this wouldn't have come up. But it's not. Read the license changes yourself and read the ML, this guy sounds like a huge PITA. I don't blame the devs for not wanting to deal with him. And it's not like you can't use ion3 because it's not in portage. You can build from source (easy) or make your own ebuild (also easy).
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rokstar83
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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I say yes and let the overlays figure it out. He already gave the Arch devs a headache, I don't see any reason to want the gentoo devs to possibly getting the same thing down the road. That being said, I really like being asked. :)

OT: I don't think I have ever heard someone so passionate about fonts. I couldn't figure out which he had more issues with, blurry fonts or the FOSS "herd".
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