FYI - This was the Pine group's response to the question of how they're
maintaining their source code. It was nice of them to respond, though
I'm not sure if it really addresses the overall questions.
- Matt
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Pine GPL and "forks"
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 20:04:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lori Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Matt Fahrner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: Lori Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Matt
First I'll address the security fixes. We take Pine security
vulnerabilities very seriously. Pine 4.3 was released today and fixes
any
known vulnerabilities. As usual, any questions about how to fix or
report
a specific vulnerability can be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
By the way, there is also some mis-information about so-called Pine
security bugs floating around such as the nonsensical report about
thousands of vulnerabilities based on a count of sprintf calls.
Regarding the licensing issue, as you know, the University of Washington
(UW) provides a source code distribution, and permits anyone to create
and
distribute patch files. Individuals are then free to merge such patches
into Pine.
Our license is not GPL. And it would not be legal for someone to create
a
GPL-fork of Pine without permission from the University of Washington.
The
UW requires that people ask permission before they *redistribute*
derivative/modified versions. And we have given permission on numerous
occasions. It's fine to redistribute the UW version; it's fine to make
your own local mods; it's fine to redistribute patch files to the UW
distribution--but if you want to integrate the patches and redistribute
the resulting derivative version, you have to ask permission.
regards,
Lori
On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Matt Fahrner wrote:
> Currently there is a discussion on the Red Hat Development list about
> the subject of Pine and its lack of GPL source code licensing.
> Specifically there are claims that the source and its maintenance is
> held too closely by the maintainers of Pine and that numerous bugs,
> security fixes, and enhancements are being held up by its lack of
> "openness". It is apparently to the point that some developers are
> suggesting a GPL version should be "fork"'ed off.
>
> For the benefit of the Red Hat Development list and for my employer, a
> company that uses Pine for a large number of users, could someone from
> the Pine group comment on your "Open Source" position?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Matt
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Matt Fahrner 2 South Park St.
> Manager of Networking Willis House
> Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Lebanon, N.H. 03766
> TEL: (603) 448-4100 xt 5150 USA
> FAX: (603) 443-6190 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Alan Shutko wrote:
> >
> > Matt Fahrner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > I completely agree *if* possible. If anything will be Open Source's
> > > downfall it will be these sorts of forks and inablility to share the
> > > sandbox together.
> >
> > Pine is not opensource software. It does not meet the OSD and Debian
> > shuttles it off into non-free. (And they put all their diffs in a
> > separate package.)
> >
> > If Pine were still opensource*, a fork probably wouldn't be necessary.
> >
> > * Some old version of the source met the OSD, iirc.
> >
> > --
> > Alan Shutko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - In a variety of flavors!
> > 21 days, 20 hours, 36 minutes, 30 seconds till we run away.
> > Your lover will never wish to leave you.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Redhat-devel-list mailing list
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-devel-list
>
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