What is public/private fork? - Criteria packaging in fedora

Michael Schwendt mschwendt at gmail.com
Fri Dec 11 11:33:13 UTC 2009


On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:43:16 +0530, Rahul wrote:

> On 12/11/2009 04:38 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:14:40 +0530, Rahul wrote:
> > 
> >> On 12/11/2009 03:56 PM, Florian Festi wrote:
> >>> Without knowing the history:
> >>>
> >>> Best solution would be to ask former upstream for permission to continue
> >>> the project under its original name 
> >>
> >> That was already denied
> >>
> >> https://lists.feep.net:8080/pipermail/libtar/2009-May/000259.html
> > 
> > Don't call it denial, though, because libtar is licensed under terms
> > similar to MIT/BSD (with no advertising clause) [1]. This alone gives many
> > permissions. See the license text for the details.
> 
> Sure but my comment has nothing to do with the license but the name of
> the project.

The author doesn't deny it, he only expressed a personal wish.
The license decides whether one may modify the project and distribute the
modified project ... and so on. Whether to do that in a src.rpm with
patches, in a private fork or in a public fork, is a different matter.

https://lists.feep.net:8080/pipermail/libtar/2009-December/000287.html

Interestingly, the author refers to the license as "BSD-style",
  https://lists.feep.net:8080/pipermail/libtar/2009-December/000282.html
which is what matches my impression quoted above. Fedora's package
says "MIT", which isn't true. Another item for the review request.

> > The real reason not to use the "libtar" namespace for a fork are
> > others. 
> 
> If a upstream developer requests anyone not to use the same name for
> continuing maintenance of a project, then regardless of the license, it
> would only be polite not to do so setting aside everything else.

Here I agree.

Just changing the project name does not suffice, however, if files and API
and ABI conflict with the old project. Refer to my older bugzilla comment
for the details.




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