[Techtalk] License Terms (was Re: Majordomo Replacement?)

Kai MacTane kmactane at GothPunk.com
Sat Jun 21 20:20:19 EST 2003


At 6/21/03 03:50 PM , Telsa Gwynne wrote:
>On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 10:51:28AM -0700 or thereabouts, Kai MacTane wrote:
>
>I am fairly sure that SuSE once released a security advisory for
>Majordomo which went, roughly, "There is a possible exploit in
>Majordomo when built in this way. We have a patch, but the licence
>prevents us from making it available (*). We therefore recommend
>you either do not use it or you trust your users until upstream
>fix it."

I must have missed that one. Luckily, I can (and do) trust my users -- 
they're all known to me by sight, and I see them reasonably often in 
various social settings.

>* I think the licence was one of those "if you modify it, you
>can't continue to call it by the same package name" types. This
>was very common at one time. Pine is the same sort of thing, I
>believe.

I.e., "you can't fork this (or if you do, you must rename your fork)". I 
think that's fairly reasonable, although it can cause troubles like the above.

                                                 --Kai MacTane
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"And when I squinted/The world seemed rose-tinted;
  Angels appeared to descend..."
                                                 --Depeche Mode,
                                                  "Waiting for the Night"



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