[Monotone-devel] Re: Linking monotone with the official lua shared library as distributed by Debian

[graydon hoare]

In gmane.comp.version-control.monotone.devel, you wrote:

> The following was suggested by a fellow Debian developer Elrond:
>
> "As I understand it, the changes are only to remove a function for
> the interpreter, that basicly does system() (as in libc). So one
> can't accidentally pass filenames with wildcards/backticks into the
> shell. - Instead, one could just register a failing function by that
> name into the interpreter."

yes, this solution will also work. I'd be happy to do this as well, in
this particular case. the remainder of this email is simply a (minor)
argument of principle.

> Regarding your very standard practice, I'm not sure I can agree that
> it is standard practice in open source communities to modify code
> and not sending patches upstream so others can benefit from it.

I agree that it is standard to feed patches upstream, when the patches
are obvious, widely wanted, in line with upstream's preferences, etc.

I disagree that this is required. and I disagree that keeping local
changes which you don't feed upstream is in any way non-standard. the
extensive set of patches every distributor keeps is evidence to the
contrary, as is the canonical free software definition.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html:

  The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
  needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for
  this.

please understand and accept that every free software author and user
has this right, and that it is completely moral to make and keep local
modifications, and even to re-publish them.

> I have no intention to apply changes in Debian that is against the
> will of upstream authors. Especially since the debian build files is
> revision controlled within monotone's own repository.

oh, I will not play such weird political games; it costs us nothing to
host your build files even if we disagree with their content. there's
no risk of us deleting or modifying them, and there's no need to take
into consideration "where you're hosting" when considering what to put
in those files. it's a distributed system anyways.

> But you, as an upstream developer, also need to understand that
> there is a world outside the monotone community and that monotone
> need to be distributed in a way that conform with requirements
> created out of a wider perspective that just a single software project.

no, this is incorrect; monotone does not "need to be distributed" in
any way whatsoever. it is a bunch of bits, and we are allowed to
publish whatever we choose within the terms of the upstream license.

please understand that I do not wish to poison our relationship over
this issue; I am very happy debian is packaging monotone, and I want
to (broadly) remain compatible with your preferences. I simply mean to
point out where you are factually misinterpreting the relationship
implied by free sw.

the correct relationship is "everyone tries to come to agreement, and
when they can't they make some divergence". the incorrect relationship
is "debian gets to tell everyone how it's going to be". in fact, in
free software *nobody* gets to force a particular set of modifications
on anyone else. not you, not me, not upstream, not users. everyone has
their own copy and can change it how they like. that's the fun part.

-graydon