berlin hosting .. ?

I hate to be a persistent thorn-in-the-side type, but I've received zero
response to the mail I sent about changes to the berlin hosting platform.
I really feel a tremendous debt of gratitude to SPI (personally) since our
site would probably have disappeared without your support; but at the same
time I'm hearing rather constant complaints that the website and CVS
archive cannot work the way I requested (separate logins, CGIs, etc). and
it seems to me like we can get such services on another host.

could someone take a moment out of their schedules and put whatever "stamp
of approval" on the matter needs to be put, such that we can begin moving
our stuff over to a machine (culus mentionned there are several) where we
will not bother anyone and can install some of the services we are
lacking?

-graydon (berlin project)

We've got a box that we can move you to as soon as we get it set up... I'm
working on it now. We'll have to lay some proceedures and what not because
it'll have more than just Berlin on it... for one.. all the spi-inc stuff
will also go through it... so we'll have to joint admin it..

On Tue, Oct 05, 1999 at 04:25:27PM -0400, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> I hate to be a persistent thorn-in-the-side type, but I've received zero
> response to the mail I sent about changes to the berlin hosting platform.
> I really feel a tremendous debt of gratitude to SPI (personally) since our
> site would probably have disappeared without your support; but at the same
> time I'm hearing rather constant complaints that the website and CVS
> archive cannot work the way I requested (separate logins, CGIs, etc). and
> it seems to me like we can get such services on another host.
>
> could someone take a moment out of their schedules and put whatever "stamp
> of approval" on the matter needs to be put, such that we can begin moving
> our stuff over to a machine (culus mentionned there are several) where we
> will not bother anyone and can install some of the services we are
> lacking?
>
> -graydon (berlin project)
>
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to spi-general-request(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
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>
>

> We've got a box that we can move you to as soon as we get it set up... I'm
> working on it now. We'll have to lay some proceedures and what not because
> it'll have more than just Berlin on it... for one.. all the spi-inc stuff
> will also go through it... so we'll have to joint admin it..

For a not-free product (contrib) ?

Package: berlin
Version: 0.0.1-1

make[3]: Entering directory `/system/build/berlin-0.0.1/src/libwarsaw'
omniidl2 -l -a Naming.idl
make[3]: omniidl2: Command not found
make[3]: *** [Naming.hh] Error 127

omniidl2 comes from the non-free packages omniorb. It is not compileable with
free packages, it must go to contrib.

Regards,

Hartmut

--
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Hartmut Koptein EMail:
Friedrich-van-Senden-Str. 7 koptein(at)debian(dot)org
26603 Aurich Tel.: +49-4941-10390
PGP-Key Fingerprint = 6C E5 A0 6B 9B ED 3B 0D EC 5B 50 D9 44 BD 55 E5

Hartmut Koptein wrote:
>> We've got a box that we can move you to as soon as we get it set up... I'm
>> working on it now. We'll have to lay some proceedures and what not becaus
>e
>> it'll have more than just Berlin on it... for one.. all the spi-inc stuff
>> will also go through it... so we'll have to joint admin it..
>
>
>For a not-free product (contrib) ?
>
>
>Package: berlin
>Version: 0.0.1-1
>
>make[3]: Entering directory `/system/build/berlin-0.0.1/src/libwarsaw'
>omniidl2 -l -a Naming.idl
>make[3]: omniidl2: Command not found
>make[3]: *** [Naming.hh] Error 127
>
>omniidl2 comes from the non-free packages omniorb. It is not compileable wit
>h
>free packages, it must go to contrib.

omniorb's copyright says it is GPL. I can't see any reason why it is in non-free.

(omniorb version 2.8.0pre2-1)

--
Vote against SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/
========================================
Oliver Elphick Oliver(dot)Elphick(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
PGP key from public servers; key ID 32B8FAA1
========================================
"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke
many people; and they shall beat their swords into
plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:4

> >> We've got a box that we can move you to as soon as we get it set up... I'm
> >> working on it now. We'll have to lay some proceedures and what not becaus
> >e
> >> it'll have more than just Berlin on it... for one.. all the spi-inc stuff
> >> will also go through it... so we'll have to joint admin it..
> >
> >
> >For a not-free product (contrib) ?
> >
> >
> >Package: berlin
> >Version: 0.0.1-1
> >
> >make[3]: Entering directory `/system/build/berlin-0.0.1/src/libwarsaw'
> >omniidl2 -l -a Naming.idl
> >make[3]: omniidl2: Command not found
> >make[3]: *** [Naming.hh] Error 127
> >
> >omniidl2 comes from the non-free packages omniorb. It is not compileable wit
> >h
> >free packages, it must go to contrib.
>
> omniorb's copyright says it is GPL. I can't see any reason why it is in non-free.
>
> (omniorb version 2.8.0pre2-1)

Copyright:

omniORB2 is available for general use under the conditions of the
GNU General Public Licence and GNU Library General Public Licence.
The latest versions of these documents can be found at:
http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html
http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/lgpl.html

respectively. They should also be available (in compressed formats)
under the /usr/doc/copyright directory.

Most of this package is licensed under the terms of the GPL. Parts
of the omniidl2 IDL parser are copyright Sun Microsystems, and
do not meet the requirements of the DFSG. The license for the
SUN Parsing code is as follows:

Sun Licence is a nightmare.

Greetings,

Hartmut

On Wed, Oct 13, 1999 at 05:19:56 +0200, Hartmut Koptein wrote:
> For a not-free product (contrib) ?

Berlin is an SPI project.

> omniidl2 comes from the non-free packages omniorb. It is not compileable
> with free packages, it must go to contrib.

There are several free CORBA implementations available, several of
which are packaged in Debian unstable "main" (MICO, ORBit). Also note
the following in libwarsaw's description:
:This library is fairly large; from 105k of IDL, this monstrosity came to
:be. To alleviate this there will probably be a port to a different orb in
:the near future.

I'm fairly sure this means that Berlin's "contrib" status will be temporary.

Ray
--
ART A friend of mine in Tulsa, Okla., when I was about eleven years old.
I'd be interested to hear from him. There are so many pseudos around taking
his name in vain.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan

On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) wrote:

> Berlin is an SPI project.

I'm curious, actually, what is meant by this, as it is also stated on the
SPI pages; it's an ambiguous phrase. If SPI says we should code left, can
we code right, or are we under a mandate to act a particular way as an SPI
project? I don't mean to imply that I disagree with SPI's mandate, but I'd
hate to find out someday that, for instance, I had been implicitly
assigning copyrights on everything I write to some other organization or
something.

> I'm fairly sure this means that Berlin's "contrib" status will be temporary.

we were unaware of omni's "semi-free" status when we began working with
it. when we were informed, we considered dropping omni and porting to TAO
(you can check the mailing list archives) but were dissuaded by remarks to
the effect that having sun's IDL parser in omniidl2 was a horrible mistake
anyway, and none of the omni programmers liked it, so they were going to
evict it shortly.

furthermore, omniidl2 is _not_ required to develop berlin (only to rebuild
its interface marshalling code from IDL), nor is omniidl2's output covered
by the sun license. free code goes in, free code comes out. the situation
would be analogous to putting all GPL'ed C programs in contrib because
there were no free compilers, or putting all CGI programs in contrib
because there were no free webservers. _our_ code is free, going into and
coming out of omniidl2. Thus you can just as easily "pretend" that
someone "magically" hand-codes all the stubs and skeletons during
development, and commits them to CVS under LGPL, and then everyone else
uses that code. we could even evict omniidl2 from the makefiles if it
would make everyone happy.

we have every intent of porting to TAO (and orbit C++, if they ever get
around to working) anyway, to evaluate features/performance and
interoperability; and we already use config.h macros to insulate
ORB-dependent parts. we're really just lacking person-power to do the
ports.

-graydon

On Wed, Oct 13, 1999 at 11:22:30 -0400, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) wrote:
> > Berlin is an SPI project.
>
> I'm curious, actually, what is meant by this, as it is also stated on the
> SPI pages; it's an ambiguous phrase.

I'll leave it to people more familiar with SPI to correct my mistakes.

> If SPI says we should code left, can we code right, or are we under a
> mandate to act a particular way as an SPI project?

I don't think so. I would expect SPI to stop supporting a supported project
like Berlin if it were to knowingly and willingly switch to a non-free
license, but I don't think SPI has much active power over its projects. It
was founded to have a legal entity to support Debian (e.g. to accept
donations), not to steer it, and has since broadened its scope.
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-1998-11-16.iwj.1
seems to be the most relevant resolution in this regard.

> I don't mean to imply that I disagree with SPI's mandate, but I'd hate to
> find out someday that, for instance, I had been implicitly assigning
> copyrights on everything I write to some other organization or something.

You can rest assued that's not going to happen. SPI doesn't even encourage
copyright assignment to it; see
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-1998-11-16.iwj.2 .

> > I'm fairly sure this means that Berlin's "contrib" status will be
> > temporary.
>
> we were unaware of omni's "semi-free" status when we began working with
> it. when we were informed, we considered dropping omni and porting to TAO

TAO is non-free as well. I'm not familiar with its license, but you may want
to discuss it on debian-legal.

> (you can check the mailing list archives) but were dissuaded by remarks to
> the effect that having sun's IDL parser in omniidl2 was a horrible mistake
> anyway, and none of the omni programmers liked it, so they were going to
> evict it shortly.

That sounds like good news; do you know of a timeframe for this change?

> furthermore, omniidl2 is _not_ required to develop berlin (only to rebuild
> its interface marshalling code from IDL), nor is omniidl2's output covered
> by the sun license. free code goes in, free code comes out.

True, but software in Debian "main" can only go in there if it can be built
with tools that are in "main" themselves.

Ray
--
UNFAIR Term applied to advantages enjoyed by other people which we tried
to cheat them out of and didn't manage. See also DISHONESTY, SNEAKY,
UNDERHAND and JUST LUCKY I GUESS.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan

On Wed, Oct 13, 1999 at 11:22:30AM -0400, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) wrote:
>
> > Berlin is an SPI project.
>
> I'm curious, actually, what is meant by this, as it is also stated on the
> SPI pages; it's an ambiguous phrase. If SPI says we should code left, can
> we code right, or are we under a mandate to act a particular way as an SPI
> project? I don't mean to imply that I disagree with SPI's mandate, but I'd
> hate to find out someday that, for instance, I had been implicitly
> assigning copyrights on everything I write to some other organization or
> something.
Not quite... Legally, "Berlin" can't hold copyrights ro trademarks or
anything like that. So the copyrights and such are in the authors name.
Debian didn't want any one person to hold the Debian Trademark, however, so
SPI was asked to hold it instead. Also, some authors assign coyrights to
SPI for whatever reason (most likely incase they disappear or so they don't
have to worry about copyrights anymore) but that's not something SPI asks
for. Same goes for property.. if someone donates a computer to "berlin"
it really belongs to you, or "john" or "joe" or someone in the project and
if that person decides to take berlin off and put something else on it
(Say, NT), there's not much berlin could do about it, legally.

SPI was also created so that people could donate money, equipment or
services to a project and have a tax write off.

--
Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also.
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