Subject: Re: [bug#55231] Understanding #:substitutable? and #55231

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:45:50 +0900

Hi Leo, Morgan, all,

Morgan Arnold via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System
distribution." <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hi Leo,
>
>> If Maxime's concern is that Guix should not make it too easy for users
>> to distribute software for which they do not have the license, I hear
>> that concern, but I argue that we shouldn't go very far with it. Of
>> course, Guix itself should not do that kind of thing, but we shouldn't
>> go out of our way to prevent users from doing so.

There is no copyright violation if the user combines ZFS and Linux
privately (no distribution).  So ideally we should be able to define
'#:substitutable? #f' on the zfs package and obtain this outcome, but
that's currently fragile as any substitute server having an initrd with
zfs support in its cache would serve it in binary form, which is not
what the user nor what the substitute server administrator intended.

It's not good to surprise user expectations in such a way, especially if
it can expose them to legal problems (no matter how unlikely).

I hope that helps put a light on what the remaining issue is, which
should be fixed (in my opinion) before #55231 can be merged.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim