Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-05 Thread Henning Makholm
Scripsit Peter S Galbraith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Then why do we have DSFG #8 `License Must Not Be Specific to Debian'
> if there is no Debian?

There *is* a Debian. But it's not a legal *person*, it's a *work*.

It is possible to write up a license that says, for example, that
copies of program X may be sold for monetary gain only as long as
it is sold together with an entire official Debian diskset or an
entire snapshot of the FTP archive.

Such a license would fail #8 because it is specific to the work
Debian.

-- 
Henning Makholm "Need facts -- *first*. Then
the dialysis -- the *analysis*."


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-05 Thread Raul Miller
> > There's no legal difference between "Debian" and "people who recieve
> > it from us". [Legally, there's no such entity as "Debian".]
> >
> > Nor is there a difference from the viewpoint of our social contract.

On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 10:35:49AM -0400, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> Then why do we have DSFG #8 `License Must Not Be Specific to Debian'
> if there is no Debian?

[1] I did not say that there's no Debian -- I said that there's
no such legal entity.

[2] There is a Debian, but (at least conceptually) it can include
everybody.

In other words, DFSG #8 is exactly what I'm talking about.

-- 
Raul


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-05 Thread Peter S Galbraith

Raul Miller wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 01:26:53PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote:
> > That to me says Debian has permission to re-distribute our modified
> > version, but that people who recieve it from us do not, unless they
> > too ask permission ("We do expect and appreciate..."). Non-free. If
> > she had written just "We appreciate..." I'd be comfortable putting it
> > in free.
> 
> There's no legal difference between "Debian" and "people who recieve it
> from us".  [Legally, there's no such entity as "Debian".]
> 
> Nor is there a difference from the viewpoint of our social contract.

Then why do we have DSFG #8 `License Must Not Be Specific to Debian'
if there is no Debian?

> Trying to divide us up, by drawing a line where there isn't one, is very
> much against what we're about.

Peter


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-05 Thread Richard Stallman
> I don't either--but that is not the point. The point is that the U of
> W has actually threatened to sue the FSF for distributing a modified
> version of a program that was released under the same words.

Personally, I'm still in the process of confirming this.

I hope that the U of W gives you a clear answer about what they have
done.  But they may decide that it is not in their interest to clarify
their conduct.  If so, I hope Debian will still drop IMAPD.


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-03 Thread Raul Miller
> > Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> > modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> > other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> > modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> > result.
> 
> I don't see anything in that language which indicates that special
> permission is required to modify and distribute the software.

On Sat, Sep 02, 2000 at 10:55:26PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
> I don't either--but that is not the point. The point is that the U of
> W has actually threatened to sue the FSF for distributing a modified
> version of a program that was released under the same words.

Personally, I'm still in the process of confirming this.

> To treat a program released under those words by U of W as free software
> is being oblivious to the problem.

Which would be bad.

And, in the long run, we might adopt your solution.  After all, it might
be the best one.

Then again, we might find a solution we feel is better.

At the moment, at least, there doesn't seem to be any reason to panic.

-- 
Raul


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-03 Thread Richard Stallman
> Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> result.

I don't see anything in that language which indicates that special
permission is required to modify and distribute the software.

I don't either--but that is not the point.  The point is that the U of W
has actually threatened to sue the FSF for distributing a modified version
of a program that was released under the same words.

To treat a program released under those words by U of W as free software
is being oblivious to the problem.




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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-03 Thread Richard Stallman
Then it must also be true that one cannot copy and then distribute, or
distribute and then copy.  Have you attempted to challenge them on this
point?  Do they have English professors at UWash, or just semioticians?

I never thought of this argument.  It could be a good point to raise
in a lawsuit; it might help win the suit.

But the immediate issue is that distributing a modified version of the
Debian package *could* get someone into a lawsuit; the copyright
holders are denying that they gave permission for that.


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-02 Thread Raul Miller
On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 01:26:53PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote:
> That to me says Debian has permission to re-distribute our modified
> version, but that people who recieve it from us do not, unless they
> too ask permission ("We do expect and appreciate..."). Non-free. If
> she had written just "We appreciate..." I'd be comfortable putting it
> in free.

There's no legal difference between "Debian" and "people who recieve it
from us".  [Legally, there's no such entity as "Debian".]

Nor is there a difference from the viewpoint of our social contract.

Trying to divide us up, by drawing a line where there isn't one, is very
much against what we're about.

-- 
Raul


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-02 Thread Anthony Towns
On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 07:47:57PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 01:26:53PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote:
> > > First of all, by this message you have our permission to distribute a
> > > modified version of IMAPD.
> > That to me says Debian has permission to re-distribute our modified
> > version, but that people who recieve it from us do not, unless they too
> > ask permission ("We do expect and appreciate..."). Non-free.
> Right, it fails DFSG 7.  Anthony Towns and Raul Miller don't seem too
> concerned about it (see their followups to my -legal message of August
> 23rd), however.

Huh?

I replied to your assertion that ``Otherwise, I think we will in fact
be unable to distribute UW's IMAPD, and should never have done so in
the first place.''. We're not unable to distribute it, we'd just have
to distribute it in non-free.

And no, I'm not too concerned about it, I don't care about IMAP at all,
and I'm not overly worried about software being in non-free.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

  ``We reject: kings, presidents, and voting.
 We believe in: rough consensus and working code.''
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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-02 Thread Branden Robinson
On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 01:26:53PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote:
> > First of all, by this message you have our permission to distribute a
> > modified version of IMAPD.
> 
> That to me says Debian has permission to re-distribute our modified
> version, but that people who recieve it from us do not, unless they too
> ask permission ("We do expect and appreciate..."). Non-free.

Right, it fails DFSG 7.  Anthony Towns and Raul Miller don't seem too
concerned about it (see their followups to my -legal message of August
23rd), however.

> If she had written just "We appreciate..." I'd be comfortable putting it
> in free.

Yes, as I said in that same message, they really are quite close to a
DFSG-free license.  The trouble is, they don't appear to know it.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson |A committee is a life form with six or
Debian GNU/Linux|more legs and no brain.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  |-- Robert Heinlein
http://www.debian.org/~branden/ |


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-01 Thread Steve Greenland
On 01-Sep-00, 02:50 (CDT), Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> Actually, we did get an answer - from Lori (Lori's last name escapes my
> memory, but it was the person who sent the message you forwarded) - saying
> that what we are doing with imapd is not against its license and if it
> turned out that it actually was, we were being given permission to do so.
> Of course, if the latter were necessary, imapd would still be non-free
> according to our guidelines.  The former appears to be the case in our
> opinion, in Lori's, and from what I gather, yours in other contexts.

I disagree with your last sentence; here's what Lori wrote:

> UW's intent has always been to allow others to modify the UW IMAPD
> for their own needs, or to redistribute the original version,
> without having to ask for permission.  We do expect and appreciate
> folks to ask before re-distributing derivative works, but obtaining
> permission is not onerous. Many have asked and they've all received
> permission. We are happy and willing to work with Debian so that
> Debian may continue to distribute UW's IMAPD.
>
> First of all, by this message you have our permission to distribute a
> modified version of IMAPD.

That to me says Debian has permission to re-distribute our modified
version, but that people who recieve it from us do not, unless they too
ask permission ("We do expect and appreciate..."). Non-free. If she had
written just "We appreciate..." I'd be comfortable putting it in free.

Steve



-- 
Steve Greenland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(Please do not CC me on mail sent to this list; I subscribe to and read
every list I post to.)


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-01 Thread Adam McKenna
On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 11:57:50AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> > I've an outstanding, unanswered question which I've sent to UW in a
> > related context (IMAPD): what specific clause of the copyright is being
> > violated, when modified versions are distributed.
> 
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 02:46:40PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> > modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> > other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> > modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> > result.
> 
> I don't see anything in that language which indicates that special
> permission is required to modify and distribute the software.

I believe DFSG/OSD say that the license must *explicitly* allow distribution 
of modified binaries.

--Adam


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Re: Free Pine? Fsck Pine!

2000-09-01 Thread Raul Miller
On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 03:39:05PM +0200, Sven Guckes wrote:
> I don't see why Debian (or GNU, or "Linux") bothers with the IMAPD of
> UofW so much at all. Aren't there quite some replacements by now?

[1] The copyright appears to meet our standards (DFSG).

[2] The only alternative imap daemon doesn't support mail stored in
mbox format.  [Which makes a certain amount of sense, considering the
reliability issues associated with mbox, but still...]

We might indeed drop all UW software -- either because we decide that
we want better relations with their developers (though that seems a bit
self-contradictory), or because we decide it's too much of a headache.
But that's a decision for the individual package maintainers.

Also, note that I'm waiting for some clarification from UW on this
"copyright issue".

-- 
Raul


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Re: Free Pine? Fsck Pine!

2000-09-01 Thread Jaldhar H. Vyas
On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Sven Guckes wrote:

> 
> I don't see why Debian (or GNU, or "Linux")
> bothers with the IMAPD of UofW so much at all.
> Aren't there quite some replacements by now?
> 

Nope. Not that are free software and/or full-featured.  Yet we're up to
our armpits in crappy POP3 servers with more coming out all the time.  I
wonder why no one cares about IMAP?

> Sure, "pine" has become a popular mailer -
> but it still is not capable of threading.
> But the IMAPD fgives us the nice "internal
> message - dont delete", and "pico" cannot
> be downlaoded and installed by itself.
> Sheesh.
> 

Btw, IMAP 2000 (currently at release candidate 5) finally gets rid of the
pseudo-message.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>




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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-01 Thread Raul Miller
> I've an outstanding, unanswered question which I've sent to UW in a
> related context (IMAPD): what specific clause of the copyright is being
> violated, when modified versions are distributed.

On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 02:46:40PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> result.

I don't see anything in that language which indicates that special
permission is required to modify and distribute the software.

Anyways, Lori said she's busy this week, but would try to have an
answer for me next week.

-- 
Raul


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Re: Free Pine? Fsck Pine!

2000-09-01 Thread Sven Guckes
* Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [000831 20:47]:
> If Debian decides to reject IMAPD and tells the U of W so,
> that will put some pressure on them to clarify the license.
> Otherwise they may prefer to leave it
> unclear in order to to "have it both ways".

I don't see why Debian (or GNU, or "Linux")
bothers with the IMAPD of UofW so much at all.
Aren't there quite some replacements by now?

Sure, "pine" has become a popular mailer -
but it still is not capable of threading.
But the IMAPD fgives us the nice "internal
message - dont delete", and "pico" cannot
be downlaoded and installed by itself.
Sheesh.

I hope that mutt will ship with some tools soon
(eg a nice frontend for managing aliases) and
then the admins can set it up for the users
together with "nano" replacing pico.

And we'll kiss pine and its IMAPD goodbye.
RIP, UofW!

Sven

PS:  Non-MailList Addresses BCCed..

-- 
Sven [EMAIL PROTECTED]  - RTF FAQ at http://www.washington.edu/pine/
PINE http://socha.net/pine-tips.html - Read Robin's Tips!
PINE http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine - Chappa's Patches!
PINE http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/pine/  - More info.


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-01 Thread Branden Robinson
On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 02:46:40PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> result.

Then it must also be true that one cannot copy and then distribute, or
distribute and then copy.  Have you attempted to challenge them on this
point?  Do they have English professors at UWash, or just semioticians?

(Sorry this mail is so short; I didn't have the time to waste yours with an
additional 1000 lines of babbling.)

-- 
G. Branden Robinson |Suffer before God and ye shall be
Debian GNU/Linux|redeemed.  God loves us, so He makes us
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  |suffer Christianity.
http://www.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Aaron Dunsmore


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Re: Free Pine?

2000-09-01 Thread Joseph Carter
Richard,

I am comfortable speaking for the group at large when I say we appreciate
your advice and input on this matter.  I myself appreciate the ends you're
trying to accomplish here.  Nevertheless, the methods you're using to go
about this cause me to question whether or not your means justify your
ends.  This message exemplifies my concern, so I shall respond to it
directly rather than making vague half-accusations.


On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 02:46:40PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
> I've an outstanding, unanswered question which I've sent to UW in a
> related context (IMAPD): what specific clause of the copyright is being
> violated, when modified versions are distributed.
> 
> Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
> modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
> other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
> modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
> result.

If memory serves me, I do indeed recall reading a message forwarded to
this effect.  The issue I am seeing rests with those words, which Debian
and indeed you yourself have accepted those words and at least half a
dozen variations of them as free software.  Someone at UW decided to tell
you that the license didn't say what it said.  Based on the language and
your interpretations of that language in all contexts not related to
software written by UW, I have to conclude that it is your belief that
regardless of their stated position, the license itself is free (if
perhaps not the clearest of wording...)



> I think that, until we get a decent answer, this should be the question
> asked by anyone who gets a threat under these conditions: ask what
> specific terms of the license are being violated.
> 
> You may never get an answer from the U of W, because right now the U
> of W can achieve its goals by saying nothing.  If they have the
> feeling that you will let the issue slide if they let it drop,
> they are likely to let it drop.

Actually, we did get an answer - from Lori (Lori's last name escapes my
memory, but it was the person who sent the message you forwarded) - saying
that what we are doing with imapd is not against its license and if it
turned out that it actually was, we were being given permission to do so.
Of course, if the latter were necessary, imapd would still be non-free
according to our guidelines.  The former appears to be the case in our
opinion, in Lori's, and from what I gather, yours in other contexts.


> However, you now do have an answer to that question, so I hope you can
> proceed to take the appropriate action, and remove IMAPD from Main.

Unless I missed something important (I have had some mail problems in the
past day or two) our answer was that imapd belongs in main.


> The message I forwarded you shows clearly that they treat IMAPD as
> non-free software, that their position is that people must ASK for
> permission to release a modified version, and that the license does
> not give permission.  That message does not give all the details.  It
> makes sense to want to know more about the situation, but it makes no
> sense to let the issue slide unless and until they give you a full
> explanation.  That is not the way to make the DFSG something that the
> users can rely on.
> 
> If Debian decides to reject IMAPD and tells the U of W so, that will
> put some pressure on them to clarify the license.  Otherwise they
> may prefer to leave it unclear in order to to "have it both ways".

And here we get into those means I do not feel justify the ends you're
after.  In order to force UW into the uncomfortable position of admitting
that what you wanted to do with pine is acceptable or telling Debian and
everyone else that UW imapd is non-free, you want Debian to take a
position you do not yourself agree with for purely political reasons.  And
that's what these are---political reasons.  There is no legal problem
here.  And there was no legal problem with pine 3.91 either, regardless of
what they said at the time.

I feel you are attempting to manipulate Debian into fighting a political
battle for you that may cost at least some of our users in the end.  Call
it taking a stand for freedom or whatever you like, but the software IS
free according to our best interpretations (and according to the
clarification we received from UW..)  I don't see an issue that Debian
needs to pursue here.  There are enough license battles for Debian to
fight as it is (I should know!) and we really don't need to look for
another one over software that everyone agrees is already free.


Trying to get someone to do something by trying to make it sound like what
you want is exactly what they want?  That sounds more like ESR's forté to
me what with all of his jedi-robed Tear Down the (Redmond-based) System
rhetoric and promises of dollar signs to anyone in a suit who pays homage
to a silly little penguin logo.  Freedom i

Re: Free Pine?

2000-08-31 Thread Richard Stallman
I've an outstanding, unanswered question which I've sent to UW in a
related context (IMAPD): what specific clause of the copyright is being
violated, when modified versions are distributed.

Their position was that the words "permission to copy, distribute and
modify" do not grant permission to distribute a modified version.  In
other words, they say you can distribute the software, and you can
modify the software, but you can't modify it and then distribute the
result.

I think that, until we get a decent answer, this should be the question
asked by anyone who gets a threat under these conditions: ask what
specific terms of the license are being violated.

You may never get an answer from the U of W, because right now the U
of W can achieve its goals by saying nothing.  If they have the
feeling that you will let the issue slide if they let it drop,
they are likely to let it drop.

However, you now do have an answer to that question, so I hope you can
proceed to take the appropriate action, and remove IMAPD from Main.

The message I forwarded you shows clearly that they treat IMAPD as
non-free software, that their position is that people must ASK for
permission to release a modified version, and that the license does
not give permission.  That message does not give all the details.  It
makes sense to want to know more about the situation, but it makes no
sense to let the issue slide unless and until they give you a full
explanation.  That is not the way to make the DFSG something that the
users can rely on.

If Debian decides to reject IMAPD and tells the U of W so, that will
put some pressure on them to clarify the license.  Otherwise they
may prefer to leave it unclear in order to to "have it both ways".




Re: MANA - Free Pine? yet another dead mailer/newsreader?

2000-08-31 Thread Santiago Vila
For your amusement:

http://ftp-master.debian.org/~sanvila/mana

If upstream maintainers tell me this is alive, I'll upload it
(for project/experimental first).

Thanks.




Re: MANA - Free Pine? yet another dead mailer/newsreader?

2000-08-30 Thread Sven Guckes
* Jimmy O'Regan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [000829 22:40]:
> ) But are there any features that
> ) mutt and slrn do not offer yet?
> How about "it's pine" ;)

No further questions.  ;-)

> Problem is though, the discussion about the IMAPD license
> started with rms mentioning that the FSF had tried to
> resurrect pine 3.91, and were threatened with a lawsuit by UW,
> who interpret the X type license pine 3.91 was under as being
> the same as the current pine license (he wanted someone to
> check if they assumed the same with X type license on IMAPD).

Sheesh.  "Death of Pine predicted.  [EMAIL PROTECTED]"

Just to end the crosspoting between
individuals and mailing lists:
  Followup-To: comp.mail.misc ?

Sven




Re: Free Pine?

2000-08-30 Thread Martin Jenssen
* Chris Allegretta

| I found a copy at ftp://ftp.kvaleberg.com/pub/mana-4.0beta.tar.gz, I
| guess it's a mirror.  A whole lot of warnings when trying to compile it,
| but it looks interesting.

Actually, I think it's the official site.  The official homepage for
Mana is:

http://www.kvaleberg.com/mana.html


Martin



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Re: Free Pine?

2000-08-30 Thread Chris Allegretta
On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 12:03:44PM +0200, Christian Surchi wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 05:56:28PM +0300, Juhapekka Tolvanen wrote:
> 
> > http://home.sol.no/~egilk/mana.html
> 
> I was curious to see it, but I can't download. Ftp server does not allow
> anonymous connection...

I found a copy at ftp://ftp.kvaleberg.com/pub/mana-4.0beta.tar.gz, I
guess it's a mirror.  A whole lot of warnings when trying to compile it,
but it looks interesting.

Chris A
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*STUFF*!  And I have to HELP YOU!" - Artemis Gordon, Wild Wild West




Re: Free Pine?

2000-08-30 Thread Christian Surchi
On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 05:56:28PM +0300, Juhapekka Tolvanen wrote:

> http://home.sol.no/~egilk/mana.html

I was curious to see it, but I can't download. Ftp server does not allow
anonymous connection...

-- 
Christian Surchi  | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.debian.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.firenze.linux.it
--
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Bug#4339: no free pine package available

1996-08-30 Thread Buddha Buck
> I rarely use pine myself (usually only when I have to read some
> MIME-encrypted mail :-), but I know it's quite popular.  It would
> be a pity if we can't ship a MIME-aware mailer with the standard
> distribution.

How odd...

I seem to have a /usr/bin/exmh, and exmh isn't in my /usr/local/bin.  I 
consider exmh to be the most MIME-aware mailer I've had the pleasure to 
use.  If it isn't in my /usr/local/bin, ., ~/bin, or 
/usr/local/openwin.bin, but I'm using it on my system, then it must be 
part of the Debian distribution, or my system is really messed up...

Exmh is an optional package in the mail section.  According to dselect, 
it depends on tk41, tcl75, mh, and metamail.  Metamail is a general 
package to handle MIME types unknown to your mailer.  Most of the 
mailers out there (including pine) use metamail transparantly.  
However, exmh is very MIME-aware on its own.  It will automatically 
display enriched-text correctly, handle multipart MIME messages well 
(both multipart/mixed and multipart/alternative), and integrates well 
with PGP.

> 
> Marek
> 

-- 
 Buddha Buck  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacaphony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects."  -- A.L.A. v. U.S. Dept. of Justice




Bug#4339: no free pine package available

1996-08-30 Thread Guy Maor
On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Marek Michalkiewicz wrote:

> The current version of pine is in non-free because the copyright
> is not clear.

The onus rests on the pine maintainer, not me, so I'm reassigning this
to pine.


Guy




Bug#4339: no free pine package available

1996-08-30 Thread Marek Michalkiewicz
Dale Scheetz wrote:
> The copyright is quite clear. You can not distribute this package for a
> fee without first getting permission from the pine developers. According
> to our policy this requires it go into non-free.

Now I noticed that the copyright has changed, the new one (same in
version 3.94 and 3.95; the new Red Hat beta contains 3.95) looks
better to me.  It says:

| Redistribution of this release is permitted as follows, or by mutual
| agreement:
[...]
|  (c) Inclusion in a CD-ROM collection of free-of-charge, shareware, or
|  non-proprietary software for which a fee may be charged for the
|  packaged distribution.

Isn't this good enough?  It sounds clear to me, but then I'm not
a lawyer...  If not - have you tried to ask them for individual
permission similar to that in the procmail package?  Here is it:

| The copyright statement below is addended for the Debian system:
|This program may be sold as a component of the Debian Linux
|distribution or a Linux distribution derived from the Debian
|Linux distribution. If it is distributed in binary form, the
|source code must be included in the distribution as well.
| End of addendum.

(procmail would be non-free without this - the original copyright
says that it may not be sold).

> The older version has some substantial bugs that have been fixed in later
> releases. It is my understanding that we do not distribute buggy software

I see.  The fix is available - but is non-free.  I can see that you
may not like to do the extra work of maintaining two versions of
the same package, but perhaps we can just say that the older version
is completely unsupported?  I hope someone still has a copy of the
old package, which could be put in contrib.  Buggy software might
sometimes be better than no software at all...

I rarely use pine myself (usually only when I have to read some
MIME-encrypted mail :-), but I know it's quite popular.  It would
be a pity if we can't ship a MIME-aware mailer with the standard
distribution.

Marek




Re: Bug#4339: no free pine package available

1996-08-30 Thread Dale Scheetz
On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Marek Michalkiewicz wrote:

> Package: ftp.debian.org
> 
> The current version of pine is in non-free because the copyright
> is not clear.  We really should talk to the maintainers - perhaps
> we can get permission to distribute the package as part of the
> distribution?  (FYI, it's in Red Hat, and those guys are quite
> careful about copyrights, too...)

The copyright is quite clear. You can not distribute this package for a
fee without first getting permission from the pine developers. According
to our policy this requires it go into non-free.
We have "talked" with the developers about changing this. In the next
version they changed the wording but the intent remained the same. I will
be working on the new release (when I can find some time) and I will check
the copyright again to see if things have improved.

> 
> Even if we don't get permission (say, Red Hat paid them lots of
> $$$ to get a license), I think we should still distribute an
> older version (before the copyright change - I think it was 3.92)
> in the regular distribution (just like we do with ghostscript).
> Are there any problems with this?
> 
The older version has some substantial bugs that have been fixed in later
releases. It is my understanding that we do not distribute buggy software
when the fix is available. The ghostscript example is, I think, a
temporary solution while a new release is awaited.
Unless someone with more authority than myself agrees with you, I am
disinclined to re-release the old version. Barring further instructions
from that direction, I will close this bug report.

Luck,

Dwarf

  --

aka   Dale Scheetz   Phone:   1 (904) 877-0257
  Flexible Software  Fax: NONE 
  Black Creek Critters   e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 If you don't see what you want, just ask --




Bug#4339: no free pine package available

1996-08-29 Thread Marek Michalkiewicz
Package: ftp.debian.org

The current version of pine is in non-free because the copyright
is not clear.  We really should talk to the maintainers - perhaps
we can get permission to distribute the package as part of the
distribution?  (FYI, it's in Red Hat, and those guys are quite
careful about copyrights, too...)

Even if we don't get permission (say, Red Hat paid them lots of
$$$ to get a license), I think we should still distribute an
older version (before the copyright change - I think it was 3.92)
in the regular distribution (just like we do with ghostscript).
Are there any problems with this?

Marek