[Debian-med-packaging] Question about proper archive area for packages that require big data for operation

[Laszlo Kajan]

Dear Russ!

Thank you for getting back to me.

On 23/04/13 18:48, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Laszlo Kajan <lkajan at debian.org> writes:
> 
>> This email is to continue the discussion about free packages that depend
>> on big (e.g. >400MB) free data outside 'main'. These packages apparently
>> violate policy 2.2.1 [0] for inclusion in 'main' because they require
>> software outside the 'main' area to function. They do not violate point
>> #1 of the social contract [1], which requires non-dependency on non-free
>> components. For these big data packages, policy seems to be overly
>> restrictive compared to the social contract, leading to seemingly
>> unfounded rejection from 'main'.
> 
>> * In case the social contract indeed allows such packages to be in
>> 'main' (and policy is overly restrictive), how could it be ensured that
>> the packages are accepted?
> 
> Yes, I agree.  Although we should probably talk with ftp-master about
> whether they would like the data to just be packaged and uploaded as a
> regular package.

Ftp-master was included in the initial thread [1], but they did not (yet) respond, and I started to feel that it may be impolite to flood their
inbox with an issue like this. Since perhaps they alone can not decide about it. So yes, ftp-master is included in the mail once again.

[1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-med-packaging/2013-April/019282.html

>> * What is the procedure within Debian to elicit a decision about the
>> handling of such packages in terms of archive area? Discussion on
>> d-devel, followed by policy change? Asking the policy team to clarify
>> policy for such packages? Technical committee?
> 
> Discussing it on debian-devel seems right, but I would also draw it to
> ftp-master's attention, since they're the people who have to worry about
> archive size).  We can easily move on to modifying Policy if there's a
> consensus to let packages like that pull the data down from some external
> source.

How to gauge that consensus?

Laszlo