etoys now available in Debian's non-free repository

[Bert Freudenberg]

Am 26.06.2008 um 22:13 schrieb Albert Cahalan:

> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 1:38 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de 
> > wrote:
>> Am 26.06.2008 um 10:53 schrieb Albert Cahalan:
>>
>>>>> This idea of applying patch collections is disturbing. It reminds
>>>>> me of the terrible mess that Minix was back in 1991, when the
>>>>> license permitted people to share patches but not code with
>>>>> the patches applied. Here you have a technical limit instead
>>>>> of a legal one, but I expect that the result is not much  
>>>>> different.
>>>>
>>> I got that. The fundamental problem is the patch collection.
>>> There is a problem even if you can distribute the result.
>>> Patches need to be applied. If you do that, and distribute
>>> a blob, then we're back to the blob problem. If you don't do
>>> that, then we have the Minix problem.
>>
>> I don't actually disagree with that. Smalltalk is an excellent  
>> personal
>> computing environment (well, you would expect that from the guys  
>> who largely
>> invented personal computing). It does not fare nearly as well for
>> distributed, collaborative development (although the Squeak  
>> community has
>> developed work-arounds, like Monticello, a nice distributed SCM).
>>
>> But: Why should these shortcomings in development style be a reason  
>> to not
>> include it in a Linux distribution? It's not like if every other  
>> app is
>> well-coded or well-maintained.
>
> The very foundation of the Linux development community
> (which Squeak developers are asking to be accepted by)
> includes an expectation that software can be handled in
> certain ways. Any person can browse the source, with the
> worst case being that one must download an archive file
> or perform a check-out.

check

> (better: web git/cvs/svn access)
> Any person can use external tools, which themselves are
> likewise open, to view/edit/save/create/share the source.

check

> (better: those tools are standard, like emacs/gimp/audacity)
> We also expect a certain degree of openness (not a lot of
> non-public communication)

check

> and a certain degree of modularity
> (parts are interchangable across similar projects and versions,
> allowing distributions to mix and match).


check

No problems, great.

- Bert -