On Tue, Apr 06, 1999 at 05:01:12PM -0700, Terry Gray wrote: > On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Bruce Sass wrote: > > 2. The above requirement places Pine in non-free, rather than main, > > which means Pine could not be put onto Debian CD's. The only fix for > > this is a licensing change; for Pine to modify their license, or for > > Debian to change the DFSG. > > I'm not clear on what the "above requirement" refers to. Does this mean, > for example, that if UW provided a Debian-ready binary for redistribution, > it would not be considered eligible for inclusion on Debian CD's? > I consider this to be a very important question.
The "above requirement" is the Pine license, specifically the part about
distribution of modified binaries.
Pine's license is the sufficient condition that prevents it from going into
the main distribution (thus being official Debian software), and therefore
from being distributed on official Debian CD's or CD images.
Individual CD vendors are free to make Debian CD's (if they don't mark or
advertise them as "official") that contain Pine .debs, or anything else
from the non-free distribution; but they have to read the licenses for each
of those pieces of software and decide whether or not they will be
violating them.
If UW would like to see Pine .debs widely disseminated, it can:
1) change Pine's license to be compliant with the Debian Free Software
Guidelines
2) contact popular Debian CD vendors and give them explicit permission to
distribute modified binaries (.debs) of Pine, effectively giving them
a special license that differs from the standard UW one
Solution 2) still won't get Pine onto Official Debian CD's, but since
Mohammed cannot go to the mountain with respect to the license, it may be
the next best thing.
I might add that since Pine is justly regarded as a good mailer for
beginning users, it would be completely appropriate software for some kind
of derivative Linux distribution based on Debian. Such a distribution
wouldn't be official Debian, anyway. Debian has long encouraged people to
base distributions with narrow focus on ours, and we do not insist that
such derivatives adopt the DFSG.
While I am certain that this has been brought to your attention before, let
me remind UW that many, many licenses meet the DFSG and are thus permitted
into Debian's main distribution. It's not just the MIT-style license,
which pretty much does mean abandoning all control of the software, or the
GPL, which is regarded by many as politically unsavory. The LGPL, and the
Artistic license (used by Perl) are also DFSG-free software. To my
knowledge, there has never been a significant fork of Perl that wasn't
initiated by the Lords of Perl themselves (Wall, Christiansen, et al.).
The only prominent forks in DFSG-free software I can think of are GNU
Emacs/XEmacs and gcc/egcs. Those happened more for political reasons than
technical ones. I'm sure I'm just banging my head against the wall, but
since the Open Source Definition is practically identical to the Debian
Free Software Guidelines, UW could get good press by freeing/opening the
source to Pine and its related tools. Because people *might* fork Pine
doesn't mean they will. In my opinion, there are two groups who would have
motivation to do such a thing; 1) some company or other who wanted to Borg
it, or 2) a bunch of hackers who use it and are desperate for functionality
that it currently lacks (or who think it has really intolerable bugs). I
think 1) is unlikely because UW can always license Pine in such a way (and
still be DFSG-compliant) that prevents people from closing off their
modified source and gouging the price; indeed, this is a big point of the
GNU GPL. I think 2) is unlikely because, frankly, a lot of the more
technical types who crave esoteric features, especially in Debian, don't
use Pine. The adherents of the church of Emacs wouldn't touch it with a
ten-foot pole (they won't use anything that isn't written in elisp), and
just about everyone else is sold on mutt. I suggest a fresh cost-benefit
analysis of changing the Pine (and Pico, and Pilot, etc.) license to a DFSG
(equivalently, Open Source) one. There is much more good press to be had
than there was even a year ago, and we all know Pine itself is much older
than that.
> I hope the above comments help clarify UW's position. I reiterate our
> willingness to work with the Debian community toward a constructive
> solution. (But kvetching about the UW license terms isn't constructive.)
The world, like software, is a dynamic thing. Conditions change over time.
Pine's license is a technical, legal document, an artifact of a brief
period in time; the DFSG, like any statement of principles, is meant to be
general and broadly applicable. It shackles no one to any particular
software license. I've given frank, constructive suggestions about ways UW
can work with Debian short of changing the license. I also think,
however, that the only way to radically improve Pine's visibility in Debian
is to change its license to one that is DFSG-compliant.
Please, review http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines and let us
see where the problem is. It looks like the only sticking point is #4. If
so, then let's start a dialogue on the risks UW perceives. We promise, no
preaching (actually, I can only promise for myself, but...). Yes, there
have been code forks in free software. But they're uncommon. In my
experience, people have to get really phenomenally unhappy with something
before they fork it. Pine is pretty good at what it does; I don't think UW
has much to fear. Mind you, I'm not "kvetching". I personally don't use
Pine; I have nothing to gain or lose if UW changes the license (I am
confident that development on my mailer of choice will not be significantly
affected).
If indeed UW decides that it just can't choke down point 4 in the Debian
Free Software Guidelines (and thus the Open Source Definition), then I
suggest putting up a web page with UW's analysis of that point in detail,
and including that information in the documentation that ships with Pine
(my apologies if UW already does this). It is better to be perceived as
avoiding free software due to relatively benign insecurity than due to
malicious greed or anathemic regard (one or both of the latter having been
motivations attributed to Microsoft).
--
G. Branden Robinson | Optimists believe we live in the best of
Debian GNU/Linux | all possible worlds. Pessimists are
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | afraid the optimists are right.
cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
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