Hi!
I created a partman-hfs package that is required for the installation of PowerMacs but will also allow to create HFS and HFS+ partitions on any machines. It might be useful on Intel Macs as well for creating shared partitions for dual-boot Macs.
While including the necessary hfsprogs-udeb in debian-installer is a bit tricky due to the non-free license of src:hfsprogs, I was wondering whether it would be okay nevertheless to include the git repository for partman-hfs packaging in the debian-installer's team project?
Apparently I did not got the point regarding non-free here, when reading
this mail that day.
Now I see that partman-hfs is in contrib, and that opened my eyes.
I wonder if it's ok from the license point-of-view, to have a installer module from contrib in the installer?
Doesn't this turn the whole installer into a no-longer DFSG-free piece of software?
Or in other words: can we call such installer the "official Debian-Installer"?
(There is another issue about non-free firmware to be included in the installer, and unofficial installer images were introduced for this; maybe this is a similar thing?)
Ahhh, another thought comes to mind:
maybe this partman-hfs is for ports releases anyway, and not to be used in official release archs?
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=666707
[2] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/hfsplus-tools/tree/rawhide
Hello Holger!
On 5/2/22 16:10, Holger Wansing wrote:
Apparently I did not got the point regarding non-free here, when reading this mail that day.
Now I see that partman-hfs is in contrib, and that opened my eyes.
I wonder if it's ok from the license point-of-view, to have a installer module from contrib in the installer?
Doesn't this turn the whole installer into a no-longer DFSG-free piece of software?
Only if you build CD images with the packages included which is not happening by
default. I would argue it's similar to non-free images that are being built with firmware included.
Or in other words: can we call such installer the "official Debian-Installer"?
(There is another issue about non-free firmware to be included in the installer, and unofficial installer images were introduced for this; maybe this is a similar thing?)
Yes.
Ahhh, another thought comes to mind:
maybe this partman-hfs is for ports releases anyway, and not to be used in official release archs?
It's part of unstable, so in principal, it can be used to build non-free installer
images.
Unfortunately, debian-cd currently seems unable to include udebs from contrib and non-free which is why this has to be enabled in the codebase first anyway.
However, I would appreciate it if you could add partman-hfs to the translation
project so it gets translated as all the other d-i packages. You are also very
welcome to perform uploads of the partman-hfs package yourself.
As for the license issue: The hfsprogs package has been in main for a long time
but then someone raised the severity of this license bug to serious and the package had to be moved to non-free [1].
I would still argue that Apple's APSL should not be considered non-free, especially
since Fedora ships the hfsplus-tools package with their normal distribution [2] and
Fedora is known to be very strict when it comes to license questions.
However, I would appreciate it if you could add partman-hfs to the translation
project so it gets translated as all the other d-i packages.
You are also very
welcome to perform uploads of the partman-hfs package yourself.
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