[BusyBox 0002704]: Please do not ship RFC in source tarball

bugs at busybox.net bugs at busybox.net
Sat May 17 01:26:43 UTC 2008


The following issue has been CLOSED 
====================================================================== 
http://busybox.net/bugs/view.php?id=2704 
====================================================================== 
Reported By:                thijs
Assigned To:                BusyBox
====================================================================== 
Project:                    BusyBox
Issue ID:                   2704
Category:                   Documentation
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     closed
Resolution:                 open
Fixed in Version:           
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Date Submitted:             03-26-2008 08:14 PDT
Last Modified:              05-16-2008 18:26 PDT
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Summary:                    Please do not ship RFC in source tarball
Description: 
Hi,

Recent releases of busybox ship an RFC in the source tarball:
networking/ftp_ipv6_rfc2428.txt

This is problematic for distributions like Debian that insist that every
and all content in their distribution is free software, and the licence on
RFC's is not free in that sense (regardless of possible good reasons for
that).

Could you please consider to remove the RFC from the released tarballs (or
SVN altogether)? That would help Debian a lot.

thanks!
====================================================================== 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 03-26-08 08:19  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Feel free to submit a patch which moves RFC text into ftpgetput.c's
comments.

/* TODO: we do not support PASV for IPv6.
...
*/

This comment must be detailed enough so that future TODOer will have no
thouble understanding what needs to be done. Use as many lines as you need
:) 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 thijs - 03-26-08 08:54  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Thank you for your quick response.

Well, one of the reasons that the RFC licence is a problem, is because its
licence does not allow to copy pieces of the RFC into a program source file
as comments, while I agree that this would be desirable.

Therefore I think the best way is to document the omission in the file but
refer to the RFC itself for details. It can be found in countless places
online, so I see no pressing need to include it in the source tarball in
order to enable someone to fix the bug, right? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 03-26-08 12:55  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
I mean - you can paraphrase RFC requirements and put resulting humanly
understandable documentation in the comment.

Until that is not done (or while ftpgetput.c does not fully support
commands documented in RFC) I am not willing to remove RFC. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 thijs - 03-28-08 04:45  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Could you explain please why this is so important? Anyone wanting to go
through the work to implement this will have no trouble to just fetch the
RFC they need, why does the text need to be in every busybox distributed
tarball for that?

Keeping the RFC in the source tarball also doesn't match the statement on
the website that busybox is completely GPL.

I'm not trying to be annoying here, just to understand what the added
value would be of adding this RFC and/or a paraphrased version. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 03-28-08 08:40  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> Could you explain please why this is so important?

It provides necessary information for people willing to fix ftpgetput.c.

I agree that they can easily find it on Internet, but practice shows that
people are lazy. For example, I know one person which is too lazy to spend
10 minutes making a patch, and wastes his/her time by trolling in bugzilla
instead... 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 thijs - 03-28-08 09:40  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Yes, I agree people are lazy but those lazy people aren't going to be the
ones spending time to fix that protocol support anyway.

I'd love to provide a patch to you that rewords the entire RFC, but to do
that accurately (if it has mistakes its useless) takes a lot more time
than just 10 minutes I'm afraid... maybe if I'm on a long train ride
sometime I'll consider doing that. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 03-29-08 09:30  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
You are right. It took me something like 30 minutes. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 thijs - 05-14-08 08:20  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Thanks for doing this. Do you think the RFC can be removed now? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 05-15-08 17:53  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Do you agree that the following is a truthful description of the events
around this bug:

You want RFC text removed from busybox source because you think it is not
allowed by RFC's copyright. But you did nothing to make it happen. You
refused to spend  http://busybox.net/bugs/view.php?id=70#30 minutes of your
time. Someone else had to do it for
you. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 thijs - 05-16-08 00:50  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Yes.

Of course I would put it like this: when working on other open source
projects I haven't found the time *yet*, and am very thankful that someone
else did so we can move on. But the essence remains the same, someone else
had to do it for me which I appreciate and am thankful for. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 vda - 05-16-08 18:26  
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Fixed in rev 21994, will be in 1.11.0 release. 

Issue History 
Date Modified   Username       Field                    Change               
====================================================================== 
03-26-08 08:14  thijs          New Issue                                    
03-26-08 08:14  thijs          Status                   new => assigned     
03-26-08 08:14  thijs          Assigned To               => BusyBox         
03-26-08 08:19  vda            Note Added: 0006034                          
03-26-08 08:51  thijs          File Added: 2704.patch                       
03-26-08 08:54  thijs          Note Added: 0006044                          
03-26-08 12:55  vda            Note Added: 0006054                          
03-28-08 04:45  thijs          Note Added: 0006164                          
03-28-08 08:40  vda            Note Added: 0006184                          
03-28-08 09:40  thijs          Note Added: 0006194                          
03-29-08 09:30  vda            Note Added: 0006244                          
05-14-08 08:20  thijs          Note Added: 0007674                          
05-15-08 17:53  vda            Note Added: 0007714                          
05-16-08 00:50  thijs          Note Added: 0007724                          
05-16-08 18:26  vda            Status                   assigned => closed  
05-16-08 18:26  vda            Note Added: 0007744                          
======================================================================




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