Bug#859808: composite: Composite not ready for being qualified package of Debian yet.

[James Cowgill]

Control: severity -1 important

[^ Prevent autoremoval while this is disputed]
[+CC Gabriel who may be interested]

Hi,

On 08/04/17 11:49, MAROQQO digital media wrote:
> To be honest I really wonder about what qualifies a package to be added
> to the repositories of Debian, since I used to tend to the impression,
> that Debian is very picky about it (one of the reasons I choose Debian).

These are the rules:
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-main

Beyond that there are no other hard rules other than the package should
have a maintainer willing to support it.

> On 04/08/2017 08:52 AM, Jaromír Mikeš wrote:
>> I am very sorry that some hydrogen users are confused but I personally
>> don't think it is reason strong enough to remove composite from debian
>> archive
> 
> Well, this is not the only reason if you read my start post and btw ...
> it actually is one of the smaller points actually, and "Some" is the
> wrong word here since - as I stated - Composite is a complete copy of an
> 8 year old Hydrogen version package and many acknowledged users, who
> know which audio software is available on Linux don't even know this
> package. They were very confused when I told them about it. Even audio
> software developers were confused. It's odd and I can't believe that the
> fact that it is a simple copy of old code which has never started to
> grow and shows no progress isn't reason enough. I really winder how this
> even came in? I am sad that you don't go into any further details about
> all other points I stated and that a simple install graph which grows by
> itself over the years is reason enough for you to say it's ok.
> 
> Again:
> 
>  + Composite describes its own status as "a broken version of Hydrogen"
> (Look at the sources I have posted, its in their own words)
>  + This status has never been changed since 2009
>  + Composite stuck in early alpha and completely feels, acts, looks and
> works like Hydrogen, a well known and in active development being audio
> application with the exactly same GUI and features atm.
>  + The road map shows that this package is in early state and only
> confuses Hydrogen users now since this fork has never left any copy
>  paste state yet despite of its name

[Disclaimer: I do not use hydrogen or composite]

While you have some good points, I don't think any of them are
sufficient reason to force the removal of this package or could even be
regarded as bugs. There are a lot of old packages in Debian which are
not going away any time soon.

If the functionality provided by composite is now in hydrogen or
elsewhere then maybe composite can be removed on the basis that it's
obsolete and has little upstream activity, but since I don't use these
packages I don't really have an opinion on this.

> I am even not sure if there isn't a copyright infringement going on
> since Hydrogen code is published on Github under GPL 2 license which
> resticts you to only use this code by using the same license, but the
> "author" of Composer has no license statement on their site at all. I am
> sorry for sounding offending here, this is not my purpose, but I really
> really wonder about all this ignored points.   

The source is correctly licensed under the GPL. Whether the license is
stated on the upstream website doesn't really matter.

James

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