[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#645487: ensembl: includes GPL code without source

[Steffen Möller]

Hello,

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 08:49:55 +0200
> Von: Andreas Tille <andreas at an3as.eu>
> An: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder at gmail.com>, 645487 at bugs.debian.org
> Betreff: [Debian-med-packaging] Bug#645487: ensembl: includes GPL code	without source

> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 07:00:23PM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> > tags 645487 + pending
> > quit
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > In October, 2011, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> > > ensembl's debian/README.source says:
> > 
> > > | Since Jalview is not yet part of Debian, its source code is also not
> > > | yet available through or distribution. To better comply with the
> GPL,
> > > | the source code of Ensembl also ships the sources for Jalview.
> > [...]
> > > Unfortunately no such file exists --- I guess it disappeared during
> > > some upgrade.

Luckily, there is now
http://packages.debian.org/sid/jalview

> > This seems to be fixed in the packaging repo.  What is left to do
> > before the updated package is uploaded?
> 
> The new package is not yet ready for an upload.

We need to do some communication and some thinking for bringing the Ensembl package up to speed again. Quite some investment was once made for it. It is trickier than it seems.

> > Would you be terribly
> > offended if I requested removal of the current package in the
> > meantime,
> 
> Yes, we would be terribly offended and I explicitely do not want
> you to request the removal.
> 
> > so we could continue to set a good example by not asking
> > mirrors to violate the GPL?
> 
> As I layed out in the ug log I consider your view on this issue
> as wrong and I do not agree - there is no point in overreacting
> in this case.

Indeed.

The particular challenge for this package is some sort of community forming. Community here stands both for a suite of software tools and the people with particular skills behind them. Don't touch it. You have seen Jalview arriving. There is much much more to it all which may well take another few years to become complete, expecting some interim update of that experimental package, admittedly :o)  The Ensembl package shows us what we are aiming at as a big integrator.

Thank you, Andreas, I almost missed this one.

Steffen