On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 12:50:06PM -0600, Martin Hoz wrote:
> Any comments about this?
> http://securityportal.com/articles/ipf20010528.html
Sure, here's my take on it...
The license has always been that way, so that others don't issue dodgy
(ie insecure or otherwise dangerous) versions of it. Copyright law
allows one to distribute modifications (e.g. in the form of patches) [1]
without distributing the derivative work that the license forbids (Thus
"forking" a distribution of ip-filter is not permitted.)
As to the "ipf34-current" version license - Darren has made clear on
the ipf list that it is because it's a private distribution *test*
version that he doesn't want to get mirrored around and end up in some
random OS distribution[2]. The poster to the list that Kurt quotes
didn't bother to ask Darren privately, first, and it would seem that
Kurt didn't either.
I'm so glad facts are checked and researched so well, before publishing
in this "instant living" day and age. After all it's so very hard to
withdraw a rumour once it has been given life, and despite the
Internet we still don't all live on the west coast of the USA in GMT -0800.
IPF isn't the first bit of software to have such clauses, either.
"Mush, the Mail User's shell" with a copyright of 1986 is another
example:
Redistribution of the unmodified source code is permitted as long as all
copyright notices remain intact and all other identifying notices remain
in the code and in the binary. This includes message headers on outgoing
mail and the startup message. Future releases may extract the release
version from the message headers of mush-originated messages to aid in
implementing features and providing backwards compatibility with previous
versions. Modification of the source for personal use is permitted.
Modifications sent to the authors are humbly accepted and it is their
prerogative to make the mods official. Only the "official" sources may be
redistributed and no sale of the code or any part thereof is permitted
without written consent from the authors. Further, no part of the code
may be used in any other product, free or otherwise, without consent from
the authors. Distribution of sources containing adaptations of the SunView
interface to XView or to any X11-based interface is expressly prohibited.
MUSH IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY. AUTHORS HEREBY DISCLAIM
ALL WARRANTIES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
and many, many, people were quite happy to use Mush.
James.
[1. http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html summarises it nicely, whatever your
opinion is of DJ Bernstein.]
[2. It is quite saddening that so many free software projects choose
to recommend that beta versions are downloaded and actively used.]
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