Licensing and technical issues with a Wine package that includes the Mozilla ActiveX Control

Hi Mike,

On Sunday 27 November 2005 14:51, Mike Hearn wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 20:08:04 +0100, Stephan Hermann wrote:
> > So do you think it would be a good idea to put Putty.exe into the wine
> > package, because it's opensource?
>
> Sure, I don't see any reason why something like Putty.exe couldn't be put
> into Ubuntu if it worked with Wine (IIRC it does), or even included with
> Wine itself if upstream had a use for it. I don't see why it'd be useful
> on Linux but you never know.
>
> > Do you think it's wise, to package windows firefox together with wine,
> > because it's opensource?
>
> That may become a technical necessity in future, so watch your
> examples closely.

Yes, and who should support those bundles?
What you have is:

	wine - compiled from source on linux which is fine
    		Mozilla Firefox - as precompiled windows binary which we can't rebuild
		from source
		Other precompiled windows stuff, which we can't rebuild from source.

So, stating this, how is a distributor able to rebuild windows sources out of 
a linux compiler toolchain? How is a distributor able to rebuild a windows 
source inside a running wine, when there is no opensource MS VC/C++ compiler?

if you give me a possibility to compile the bundled applications from source 
for windows during a wine build, I feel better. But otherwise, a distributor 
shouldn't support windows userland binaries or sources IMHO.

> > Thinking about userland windows applications/libraries in a wine package,
> > I, as packager would remove them. They don't belong to the original
> > source package named wine.
>
> You are *AGAIN* stating you would interfere with upstream technical
> decisions for no good reason other than "I don't like it". That is
> unacceptable. It's not your place, nor the distributions, to override
> upstream decisions in that way.

Yes. Speaking of OSS, it's in the packagers responsibility to decide what to 
build and what to provide in a package and what not.
And I would remove those bundled binary windows applications/libraries. Even 
if I have to fight with upstream. 
It has nothing to do with "I don't like it" it has some real life problems 
attached.

There is nothing against your idea, but seeing it from a distributors point of 
view there is no chance to support those ideas. 

Well, this is my opinion. 

Regards,
\sh