I posted a sample WebUI for review, and back in July 12 one of the uClibc development team wrote me. I didn't notice the message until yesterday. The message was a very polite query, and I think a response to the list is warranted. Basically, it was "who are you, and why won't you release your source code, when what you are using is GPL'ed?"
By day I am part of the IT staff for a large organization that is not involved in providing IT services or products. All of my IT work is done for internal organizational consumption. (e.g. keep the file servers and email servers running.) We (Organization) have no interest in promoting open source other than for internal use. That having been said, we the IT guys definitely get OpenSource, and /want/ to contribute. The directive from our management is that we can release stuff we write GPL'ed or any other way, as long as it A) Isn't branded (e.g. internal logos, passwords, our business rules coded in, etc.) and B) We don't release it in the organization's name. I understand their position, and everyone's trying to play fair here. But the rules are: I can release code, but it has to be in my name, and I have to make sure that it isn't branded. So, when you see my email domain, that's me (the individual). When you see www.tetrasec.net, that me (the individual) too. ---- We worked on a project that involves clusters of "LEAF"-like boxes that act as a set of perimieter networks for our branch offices. I say "LEAF"-like because its a pretty big fork of the old Bering code, with some of everyone else's ideas thrown in. These things boot from CD, and are coded to have our business rules built in (For example, I have to deal with "this person can send email, that person can only send to certain domains, and that third person can't send email at all.") Back when J. Nilo was maintaining Bering, I talked with him briefly about merging some of our ideas (the sane ones - not the example of email usage!) into Bering. He was more interested in a single-diskette distro than a full-fleged CD. I respect his position, and think he was right. One of the things that the cluster includes is a web-based interface. Years and years ago we had discussions on this list about web interfaces. After actually seeing one in production, I'm now a passionate believer. According to my rules of conduct, I can release the web-configuration engine, but just have to make sure that the business rules (and look&feel .e.g. css stylesheets) are changed. A few months ago I had a brief off-list conversation with Erik Spakman regarding suggestions for developing the webconf into a package. Our architecture is: pointers to the cgi's, for building the menu: /var/lib/lrpkg/pkgname.webconf the cgis: /var/www/.../blah.cgi /var/www/.../blah2.cgi This means when you load a lrp, the webinterface for /that package/ automatically shows up. Erik suggested that it might help adoption if I just left all of the cgi's and webconf's in my own .lrp. So I set off to create a web configuration engine for review by the LEAF folks, using stuff /based/ on the engine I wrote for our organization. Since I needed new look&feel, and I was targeting uClibc, I ripped the css and images from the leaf.sourceforge.net site. I was working on this little demo when Mike Noyes mentioned to the list that we really needed a web interface. So I have: a running system that's branded, and is part of a cluster, but works ok - and this little demo box. The demo box wasn't ready for prime time, but I wanted to share what I had so I posted >I'm not at liberty to give the whole web thing away, but >if anyone is interested I could peel off a few cgi's as a demo. What I meant was, I *know* this approach works in production and works well enough, but all I have available is my little demo box, with just a few cgi's that I've completed. In hindsight, what I actually said was "I've got this thing based on your hard work that you've released under the GPL. I can give you a peek, but you can't have it." That is not what I meant, and I'm sorry. Mike Noyes was still nice enough to ask if I could play nice and donate the code. My perspective - I was thrilled that I could participate, and immediately tried to package my little demo box up for review. I make things worse by my next post: >I put out a sample of a web configuration out for review, its >based on what we are currently using, although somewhat crippled >- I just pulled a few pages out of a running system, and hacked >them to work with UCBering... Crippled was a very poor choice of words. I meant crippled in the sense of "I only got 2 web pages working ...", but it comes across as if I'm deliberatly witholding the code. Again, that's not what I meant. The guts of the system are *ALL* there: /var/webconf/validator.sh - validates input /var/webconf/svcstat.cgi - the thing that prints the start/stop/restart buttons /var/webconf/preamble.cgi - the menu builder / presentation layer plus the cgi interpreter and other support junk. All of the above is considered GPL code - use it as you wish. (Again, in hindsight, I should have had more discipline and actually put the copyright notice in each file. I'll fix that.) One crippled part of the package is the "SAVE" buttons. The reason for that is our boxes run from cd, we use our own hacked "apkg" (available at www.tetrasec.net), and save just the .local files to floppy. We have a controlled environment, which is not true for uCBering - I wanted to show what was possible, but I'm not sure yet how to handle the "boot only from floppy OR possibly boot from CD" situation. In the reference system, we can preload alot of the configuration data, so we don't allow the end user to ever edit keyboard, dnscache, modules, or even hostname - so I don't have any prior art for that, and that's the first thing a standard uClibc box would need configured. On the other hand, I have pages to configure chrony as an ntpserver/client - but uCBering doesn't use that :-( So more work needs to be done on the little demo package. ---- Rereading my posts from a fresh perspective, and then looking at my website - I can understand your concern - here's some guy ripping our images, stylesheets, code, everything - and then won't give it back... All I can say is "wow" You all are /very/ professional. If anyone deserves to be flamed, its me! Thank you for your kind moderation. To clarify, however: *Anything* you find on www.tetrasec.net is open-source, GPL. I post stuff there to share with you, and you are free to use it or ignore. ---- The apology: I've been with you for a long time. I still have my 2.0.35 LRP diskette. But when it comes to posting back, I'm obviously a clueless newbie. I'm sorry for the confusion and frustration I may have caused you all. I've leared some valuable lessons from this, and hope that I can still contribute to the team effort. Thank you for your patience. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by OSTG. Have you noticed the changes on Linux.com, ITManagersJournal and NewsForge in the past few weeks? Now, one more big change to announce. We are now OSTG- Open Source Technology Group. Come see the changes on the new OSTG site. www.ostg.com _______________________________________________ leaf-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel