Michael Alan Dorman wrote:
>ESR has, IMHO, decided to start a pissing match about ncurses
>development. I have no desire to participate or watch.
Mr. Dorman's opinion is understandable but mistaken.
The senior maintainers and copyright holders of ncurses (Zeyd benHalim
and myself) both feel very strongly that Thomas Dickey hijacked the
project in a way that was unethical, injurious to the interests of
the free-software community, and arguably flat-out illegal under our
license terms. We protested his actions in public at the time.
Out of reluctance to get into a fight about the matter, we
nevertheless let it lie for six months. Our efforts to negotiate with
Mr. Dickey came to nothing; he refuses to answer private mail that he
finds it convenient to ignore. My attempts at that time to find a
trustworthy third-party pair of hands to pass the software to also failed.
The current unpleasantness came about because Mr. Dickey asserted
control over yet *another* project that is not his to dispose of.
This made it impossible for me to continue my passivity.
I am currently seeking a solution that will take the hijacked sources
out of Thomas Dickey's hands. I am willing to assign my rights to a
trustworthy third party, and Zeyd has agreed to second any actions I
deem necessary.
I will settle for FSF taking over if I have to, but I would prefer
that the new primary maintainer be some person of good reputation in
the Linux or *BSD communities.
Is anyone here willing to take on this responsibility? There's an
awful lot of good work in ncurses. I think everyone would consider
it a shame if that all went to waste.
--
<a href="http://www.ccil.org/~esr";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
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