on package duplication between Debian and debian-multimedia

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Sun, May 06, 2012 at 07:27:23PM +0200, Christian Marillat wrote:
> > We could also consider various in-between solutions, such as adding
> > suitable prominent disclaimers on your website explaining that your
> > initiative is not affiliated with the Debian Project, that it might
> > cause technical incompatibilities with official packages, and that the
> > donations you're collecting are for you personally and not for the
> > Debian Project.
> 
> Did you read the donate page ? There is no ambiguity.
> http://www.debian-multimedia.org/donate

Yes, I've read it before contacting you, and I don't think it enough.
The only thing that helps clarifying the donation target is the "me" in
the sentence "donate some money to me". But you are also an official
member of the Debian Project, so a donor might be induced to think you
will use that money for Debian and there is no evidence of that.

For a website that uses the Debian name, I consider necessary two big
fat warnings:

- one on the homepage or, better, in the footer of every page stating
  something like "this website is not affiliated with the Debian
  Project, use it in combination with Debian at your own risk"

- one on the donation page stating something like "the donations
  collected here are not donations to the Debian Project", better if in
  combination with a link to http://www.debian.org/donations for those
  who really want to donate to the Debian Project

In the Debian BTS there is evidence about users being confused at the
relationships between debian-multimedia.org and the Debian Project. I
think that warrants the above two precautions.

Can you please implement them?

> > I hope we can reach an agreement on (some variants of) point (1). I'm
> > personally convinced d-m.o could offer a very useful service to Debian
> > users, for packages that are not part of the official archive. But d-m.o
> > really needs to do so in a way that doesn't get in the way of official
> > packaging activities, otherwise it will remain a perennial source of
> > conflicts, to the detriment of both parties.
> >
> > What do you think?
> 
> I'll move to a new domain name (without debian), for that I need
> time. Maybe 3 or 6 months should be enough, I don't know exactly.

Unless I'm mistaken, on April 7th, while the discussion between me and
the pkg-multimedia-maintainer was going on, you've both renewed
debian-multimedia.org for another year and registered the domain that
now hosts http://www.deb-multimedia.org . I guess that is the website
you want to move debian-multimedia.org to.

You're right, that would solve the "debian" name problem. I don't think
that is the best way to benefit users of both your repository and of
Debian, because they will keep on suffering of the confusion and
technical issues we have discussed. But you're free to go that way. I
encourage you to think twice and to reach a technical agreement with the
official Debian Multimedia team about what belongs where.

In the meantime, and considering your intention of moving away from
debian-multimedia.org, I'd like to ask you to transfer the old domain
name to a Debian Trusted Organization, such as SPI or FFIS. We can agree
on a timeline of, say, 6 months and we will be happy to use it as you
please until that time period is over.

Cheers.
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli     zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences   ......   http://upsilon.cc/zack   ......   . . o
Debian Project Leader    .......   @zack on identi.ca   .......    o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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