Re: Portable RPM for qmail
[ Please make your MUA understand Mail-Followup-To ] On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 12:12:14PM +1000, John Newbigin wrote: You may distribute a precompiled package if [ ... ] installing your package produces exactly the same files, in exactly the same locations, that a user would obtain by installing one of my packages listed above; My RPM produces exactly the same file and directory structure with the exception that I have removed the cat pages. If that is a problem then they could be added back in. The RPM spec was generated by the hier.c code and I have verified the installed package with instcheck. I have applied my own patch which removes the uid/gid problems and I have added a redhat 6.2 style rc script. The source rpm contains the original qmail-1.03.tar.gz and my 2 patch files. A source RPM is not a precompiled package; so I don't see a problem with this, especially since Bruce Guenter is also distributing one. Bruce may have obtained permission from Dan, however, you'll have to ask him. your package behaves correctly, i.e., the same way as normal installations of my package on all other systems; and What exactly is meant by that? There is no standard installation procedure and there is no reference package so what constitutes correct behaviour? It means tbat if you apply patches that modify the behaviour of qmail, you can't redistribute the _binary_ package. In my interpretation, this excludes modifications to the installation procedure. [...] All installations must work the same way; any variation is a bug. If there's something about a system (compiler, libraries, kernel, hardware, whatever) that changes the behavior of my package, then that platform is not supported, and you are not permitted to distribute binaries for it. All installations must work the same way as what? My RPM is built for RedHat 6.2 only. All installations must work the same way as an installation from source, without modifications on a supported platform. So adding an rc script in /etc/rc.d is not a problem, but installing a modified qmail-send that sends obscene bounce-messages is not. I have built the RPM's for my own use but I would like to do what I see a a service to the community and make them available to help rid the world of sendmail. I hope that the barrier to doing this is not too great. While I appreciate the sentiment, I think this specific community will not benefit from additional (packaged) distributions. There is already a wide variation of installation instructions and a fairly major modified distribution, all of which are supported in this forum. I fear that adding another one (that doesn't add any significant features to Bruce's version) will only add to the support load here. It is my opinion that the best way to install qmail, _especially_ for inexperienced qmail users, is to build from source, using either Dan's instructions or Life With Qmail. Mailservers in general and qmail especially are not trivial software; they're network-accessible services that have significant operational and security-implications. This means that making new users read a lot of documentation is a _feature_, not a bug. If you really want to do this, I think your safest choice is to only distribute the source RPM, or obtain specific permission from Dan to distribute the binary RPM. Vince.
Re: Portable RPM for qmail
On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 09:17:29AM +0200, Vincent Schonau wrote: [ minor correction ] All installations must work the same way as an installation from source, without modifications on a supported platform. So adding an rc script in /etc/rc.d is not a problem, but installing a modified qmail-send that sends obscene bounce-messages is not. ^^^ Scratch that: the last case _is_ a problem. Vince.
RE: Portable RPM for qmail
Title: RE: Portable RPM for qmail 1. That HAS been done before, Bruce Guenter has created a similar patch 2. Q-Mail's license does NOT allow distribution of binary packages including Q-Mail. P.S. Please forgive the signature and HTML that this e-mail has in it, unfortunately due to the network within which I work (Microsoft driven of course!) I can't get rid of the signature or the HTML - not my choice! -Original Message- From: John Newbigin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2001 4:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Portable RPM for qmail I am probably going to start a flame war with this but I have created a patch for qmail 1.03 which removes the need for compiled in user and group id's. The patch works by replacing the auto_uida variables with #defines which call functions to return the correct uid. Once the user id has been looked up it is remembered should the same instance try to look it up again. I have not measured the performance of this but for a low volume server I would imagine that is would be negligible. With this patch in place it is possible to build an RPM which can be safely installed without the need to relink or binary edit and files. I am happy to release the patch and the SRPM if is anyone is interested. My second question is about the licence for qmail. Despite all my looking I can't find it. Can someone point me to the licence or summarise what I can do with a binary RPM. Thanks. John. -- Information Technology Innovation Group Swinburne University. Melbourne, Australia http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn Please Note: The information contained in this email is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not disclose or use the information in this email in any way. If you have received this email in error, kindly notify the sender. The sender does not guarantee the integrity of this email or any attached files.
Re: Portable RPM for qmail
On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 04:33:43PM +1000, John Newbigin wrote: My second question is about the licence for qmail. Despite all my looking I can't find it. Can someone point me to the licence or summarise what I can do with a binary RPM. URL:http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html Vince.
Re: Portable RPM for qmail
John Newbigin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am probably going to start a flame war with this but I have created a patch for qmail 1.03 which removes the need for compiled in user and group id's. The patch works by replacing the auto_uida variables with #defines which call functions to return the correct uid. Once the user id has been looked up it is remembered should the same instance try to look it up again. Bruce Guenter has been distributing a patch like this for years; it takes its UIDs and GIDs from the ownership of a set of files in /var/qmail/owners -- nice, because if you want to do a global renumbering of UIDs, qmail gets fixed automatically by the same process you use to change ownership of the rest of the filesystem. With this patch in place it is possible to build an RPM which can be safely installed without the need to relink or binary edit and files. Except the resulting binary RPM will not be distributable. My second question is about the licence for qmail. Despite all my looking I can't find it. Can someone point me to the licence or summarise what I can do with a binary RPM. See Dan's Information for qmail distributors (or such). Basically: you can't distribute modified source, if you want to distribute any binaries they have to meet his var-qmail (?) definition. Charles -- --- Charles Cazabon[EMAIL PROTECTED] GPL'ed software available at: http://www.qcc.sk.ca/~charlesc/software/ ---
Re: Portable RPM for qmail
You may distribute a precompiled package if installing your package produces exactly the same files, in exactly the same locations, that a user would obtain by installing one of my packages listed above; My RPM produces exactly the same file and directory structure with the exception that I have removed the cat pages. If that is a problem then they could be added back in. The RPM spec was generated by the hier.c code and I have verified the installed package with instcheck. I have applied my own patch which removes the uid/gid problems and I have added a redhat 6.2 style rc script. The source rpm contains the original qmail-1.03.tar.gz and my 2 patch files. your package behaves correctly, i.e., the same way as normal installations of my package on all other systems; and What exactly is meant by that? There is no standard installation procedure and there is no reference package so what constitutes correct behaviour? your package's creator warrants that he has made a good-faith attempt to ensure that your package behaves correctly. I have built the package to be used by myself so I warrant that I have made a good-faith attempt to ensure that the package behaves correctly, but thay may change depending on what is meant by 'correct behavious' in point 2. All installations must work the same way; any variation is a bug. If there's something about a system (compiler, libraries, kernel, hardware, whatever) that changes the behavior of my package, then that platform is not supported, and you are not permitted to distribute binaries for it. All installations must work the same way as what? My RPM is built for RedHat 6.2 only. I have built the RPM's for my own use but I would like to do what I see a a service to the community and make them available to help rid the world of sendmail. I hope that the barrier to doing this is not too great. John. Vincent Schonau wrote: On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 04:33:43PM +1000, John Newbigin wrote: My second question is about the licence for qmail. Despite all my looking I can't find it. Can someone point me to the licence or summarise what I can do with a binary RPM. URL:http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html Vince. -- Information Technology Innovation Group Swinburne University. Melbourne, Australia http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn
