On Fri, Jan 31, 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Care to elucidate upon the non-GPL licensing restrictions?
[I think you might have sent a reply to a private mail to this list. Sometimes not what the author of the private mail wanted.] Distribution of qmail is under the terms at: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html Note the requirement: If you want to distribute modified versions of qmail (including ports, no matter how minor the changes are) you'll have to get my approval. This does not mean approval of your distribution method, your intentions, your e-mail address, your haircut, or any other irrelevant information. It means a detailed review of the exact package that you want to distribute. 'Me' in that passage is Dan Berstein. Licences that require submitting patches back to the original author are not usually considered Free[1]. Free Software requires "the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs" and "the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public". If Dan Bernstein doesn't approve of your improvements, or you can't contact him, or he is uncontactable (or dead[2]) then you can't release your improvements to qmail. As a user of qmail, you may or may not accept this - it shouldn't make much practical difference, although it may limit the supply of packages and patches (I don't know, I haven't done a comparitive study). It makes a philosophical difference to people who are attracted to the philosophy of Free Software. -Mary [1] Using the philosophy outlined at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [2] It's morbid, but people who release code under "you must submit patches back to me" seldom take into account that this makes their software unchangable as soon as they die. I suppose you could release it under a Free licence in the terms of your will or designate someone else as the receiver of patches, but I doubt many people have actually done this. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
