Re: Use of Vagrant in tests poses licencing question

[Ole Tange]

On Fri, Mar 1, 2024 at 4:26 AM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>
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> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
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>
>   > I think a solution that adheres to POLA would be to check if Vagrant
>   > is installed and if not install version 2.3.7.
>
> I don't recognize the name POLA
> but that solution sounds good to me.

Principle Of Least Astonishment = Do what most people would expect.

>   > > Is there a place that distributes Vagrant 2.3.7's tar ball
>   > > without requiring the user to run Javascript code?  You could link to 
> that.
>
>   > The binary is on: https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.3.7/ which
>   > I probably would use in the script above.
>
>   > However, https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.3.7/ does not
>   > distribute the source code.
>
> That is not good.
>
>   > I could put the source.tar on www.gnu.org/s/parallel
>
> Please do that.
>
> Is it NECESSARY to distribute the Vagrant binary?
> Would it be ok for people to build from source?a

The script mentioned above installs with 'apt'. It could simply fail
if Vagrant is not available:

  "You must install Vagrant to continue"

but I feel it will be better if it installs Vagrant - just like it
installs other requirements for testing.

If people want to build Vagrant from source, they should feel free to
do so, but I am not going to maintain a script that does that.

> How many different platforms require different Vagrant binaries?

I only run Vagrant on x64. Vagrant is used to provide different
platforms for testing platform specific tests. Basically, when
something only fails on a specific platform, I add a test to that
specific platform.

> After that is dealt with, could you please inform the people who work
> on directory.fsf.org about the change in the situation of Vagrant?

I have no idea how to contact those and what to say to them. If I
search https://directory.fsf.org/ I find no page for Vagrant.

> We need to stop linking to the place that distributes nonfree versions
> of Vagrant.

I do not think https://directory.fsf.org/ links to Vagrant.


/Ole