Hi,
As we seem to be committed to using RPM now, the idea of a OS2VOICE rpm server seems good. There are programs such as FFmpeg that have many dependencies and could really benefit from a package manager as well as many programs where installation could be simplified by using RPM. OTOH, long range plans for ANPM include better support of WPI packages allowing them to co-exist better with rpm, so no need to totally drop Warpin.
Problems come from what exactly are the Dutch (and EU I guess) regulations. Copyright is complex enough with different jurisdictions having not quite compatible copyright laws. eg, a bunch of stuff just entered the public domain here in Canada, but in many jurisdictions, including the States, they're still under copyright. There's also differences in what can be copyrighted, some places a recipe can be copyrighted and others, not. Same with headers, their copyright status is not clear and is likely to vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and without a court case can be really unclear.
Then there are corner cases such as the discussion on cdrecord where strictly speaking, it seems copyright is being broken by distributing Froloff's patched cdrecord without source so no GPL licence. There's lots of stuff on Hobbes that likewise is probably a copyright violation but as long as the authours don't complain, it is fairly harmless.
More important when talking about multimedia applications in particular are patents. A lot of this stuff is patented and American law, as an example, is pretty strict in enforcement, as well as pretty liberal in what can be patented. I have no idea what the Dutch (and EU) regulations are on these patents and I'm not even sure about my country.
Debian, for example, gets around these problems by having non-free repositories hosted in safe countries, same with projects such as MPlayer. Then there is lame, which simply only distributes source code as it seems it takes a binary to infringe. This also opens up the possibility to compile some software on the users machines to work around these problems.
Last, but not least, is with an expanding number of repositories, is keeping them in sync to avoid RPM hell.
When it comes to copyright infringement I can not distribute for example distribute the OS/4 kernel, sorry guys.
But I can for example also not distribute IBM works repackaged, to just name an example. While IBM no longer distributes this...
However we can distribute open source software or trial versions of software. For example we could consider repacking Bluecad as an RPM. Its as freeware on hobbes...
When it comes to softwarepatents: While recently the climate has become better I think. the United States sucks when it comes to software patents and patent trolls. That said, I see that recent rulings from the US Supreme court have made life of patent trolls a lot harder. But there is still a long way to go...
The European Union seems to be a cross roads when it comes to software patents. But it seems we are not going down the insane road the US went threw with software patents. But these are uncertain times. That said I find the legal system in the Netherlands a lot better to prevent so called patent trolls from sending out these "license or see you in court letters".
Lastly the VOICE foundation is poor, we have about 10.000 Dollars in the bank currently. So why would anybody sue us. The board members are not liable personally but we should do anything extremely stupid.
So I hope that kind of clears up the atmosphere. The RPM will however also not be a click and upload...
I still need 1 or 2 people that can help with testing RPM package made. I want to be certain they work :-)
I have not yet written a complete policy document as time after time I did not even get 1 RPM to upload myself ready or from somebody else.
What I do think is important is that we bundle everything in one repo next to the Netlabs repo.
I hope that answers some of the questions.
Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE...