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In the beginning there was Sorcerer GNU/Linux, a GNU/Linux distro created by Kyle Sallee that used a unique GPLed package management system named Sorcery. And it was good. Unfortunately, due to several issues, Sorcerer was forked into Lunar Penguin (now Lunar Linux), and Kyle took the original Sorcerer offline with no explanation. Thanks to the freedom granted by the GPL, we continued the Sorcerer distro from assembled backups, etc. A month later, as Sorcerer was starting to regain lost ground, Kyle relaunched his version of Sorcerer under a non-forking (thus non-free) license he calls the SPL. We renamed our distro Source Mage after a vote, out of respect for Kyle's wishes. Development now continues on 3 seperate distros with three distinct goals. - Lunar-Linux aims to produce a stable, solid, source-based
distro using well tested software versions. We hope you will take the time to evaluate each of
the sorcery based solutions and find the one that best suits
your interests. And we also hope that Source Mage is your
choice. ;) 1. Source Mage Will Remain 100% Free We promise to keep the Source Mage GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free (as in freedom). This means that all software we release will be licensed under the GNU General Public License, all of our documentation will be released under the GNU Free Documentation License, and third-party software included in our base distribution will be under a GPL compatible license, as defined by the Free Software Foundation. While we recognize that these are not the only "free" software licenses, we choose to maintain the simplicity that this solution provides. We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Source Mage, but we will never make the core system depend on an item of non-free software. 2. We Will Give Back to the Free Software Community When we write new components of the Source Mage system, we will license them under the GPL. We will make the best system we can, so that free software will be widely distributed and used. We will feed back bug-fixes, improvements, user requests, etc. to the "upstream" authors of software included in our system. 3. We Won't Hide Problems We will keep our entire bug-report database open for public view at all times. Reports that users file on-line will immediately become visible to others. 4. Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free-software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environment. We won't object to commercial software that is intended to run on Source Mage systems, and we'll allow others to create derivative distributions containing both Sorcery and commercial software, without any fee from us. To support these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality, 100% free software, with no legal restrictions that would prevent these kinds of use. 5. We will not limit user choice to our free-software standards We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of programs that don't conform to the strict Source Mage Licensing Guidelines. While Source Mage will never rely on non-free software, we do not limit a user's choice of software. We will provide the tools for a user to make their own informed decisions, via each spell's "LICENSE" field, and the sorcery spell filter. Thus, although non-free software isn't a part of Source Mage, we support its use, and we provide infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing lists, as well as spells) for non-free software packages. 6. Working on this project is about FUN! We the devlopers work on this project to maintain a distribution that WE like to use. It is about enjoying what we are doing, so that if you notice that deadlines are not met, that things are not happening for you fast enough, then by all means you are welcome to join in. Roll them up and get dirty by fixing what is bugging you the most. We are always glad to have new developers join in and welcome all who share this philosophy.
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