Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Introducing ConnochaetOS

[Sam Geeraerts]

Henry Jensen schreef:
> Hello,
> 
> I am Henry, a 40 year old computer engineer from Germany. I am using
> free software since 1999 and created the "DeLi GNU/Linux"
> distribution in 2002.
> 
> Altough the last release of DeLi is more than 2 years old there is
> still an active community. So we, a small team, decided to create a
> successor project, this time as entirely free software.
> 
> ConnochaetOS will be a free operating system for the desktop with old
> computers in mind but with modern software. The name ConnochaetOS
> derives from "Connochaetes", the scientific name for "Gnu".
> ConnochaetOS will contain only free software, according to the GNU
> Guidelines for Free System Distributions. We aim for minimal hardware
> requirements, as low as a Pentium I processor and 64 MB RAM for a
> graphical desktop.
> 
> The web site will be at http://www.connochaetos.org
> 
> As usual with such projects we are searching for any help and
> resources for hosting.

Welcome to the free distro community.

> We are still in the early stages of development, and right now I am
> constructing a build system, which brings me to some practical
> questions regarding some packages. The "Software Blacklist" at 
> http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Software_blacklist didn't list this
> software, but I have some concerns about them.
> 
> 
> netpbm ====== The site http://netpbm.alioth.debian.org/ states "The
> upstream source is split into two to allow Debian packaging - some of
> it is free and some goes into non-free. Some of the upstream source
> files cannot be redistributed at all, as there is no license
> associated with them. "
> 
> At least hpcdtoppm seems to be non-free, but this program doesn't
> seemed to be included any longer in the source tarball of various
> distros, instead a replacement script was added, stating that
> hpcdtoppm ist not included any more.
> 
> I just wonder if there may be other problems with netpbm, since
> Debian still has its "netpbm-free" but other distros include
> "standard" netpbm, including free distros (I confirmed that for
> BLAG).

Debian copyright info [1] has an "UNKNOWN, SO NOT DISTRIBUTED" section.

> psutils ======= The license states:
> 
> "The included files, md68_0.ps and md71_0.ps (and their uuencoded
> forms) are (to the best of my knowledge) copyright Apple Computer,
> Inc."
> 
> The mentioned files are without license and copyright notice. Can I
> disribute them with peace of conscience?

The "to the best of my knowledge" doesn't give much hope, but I suggest
you contact upstream anyway to ask about copyright and license information.

[1]
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/n/netpbm-free/netpbm-free_10.0-12.2/copyright