Re: PINE Debian Package
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Rev. Joseph Carter wrote:
> Are you aware that among other things the patches to pine added since the
> last binary package was released include things which are not merely
> configuration but are purely bug fixes, feature enhancements (maildir
> patch comes to mind) and other things along that line? UoW was asked
> about these things and they said they didn't want binaries of unapproved
> patches.
If it was any other package, I would not have said anything and I waited
for someone else to bring it up before venting my frustration. Pine/pico
is the one package that you can not expect the user to build because
chances are good that they can't. I use pine over telnet and never use
pico but it is on the system and always will be. This is a very special
application, it is usually one's first mailer and editor.
> In this sort of situation, I think a -src .deb file is a good thing for
> pristine source with which one can apply Debian patches. Does anyone else
> think so? Currently the only things I know of in this category are qmail
> and pine. Netscape can be put in .deb now and I don't think you can
> distribute rvplayer..
qmail is completely different. The author specificly disallows binary
distribution of any kind. University of Washington makes no such demands.
>
> Because someone asked and the UoW clarified that they didn't want patched
> binaries if they didn't pre-approve the patches. The maintainer didn't
> like that idea.
Hmm. I can understand that from the maintainers ego standpoint but if I
owned pine, I might want a look at those patches too in order to see if
there is anything that should go into the mainstream distribution and to
see if someone was hacking backdoors to reading other people's email into
the program. In any case, if UofW specificly said that they want to
pre-approve patches to a program they own and Debian thinks that is not
acceptable, there is no choice. I can understand their concern
considering privacy issues. Now if someone's mail is hacked on a Debian
system and it is found to be the fault of Debian's patches, it is Debian
that gets hauled into court where under UofW's method, Debian would have
had some protection since the patches would have been approved by UofW.
I guess the same exposure would apply to any patches to any email system
supplied by Debian with patches to the source.
> That's why I want to see a pine-src package built. It would at least put
> it back in where people could use it.
I agree that the pine-src is the best alternative method. I suppose I
would lobby for allowing UofW to approve the patches first, though. If for
no other reason that some additional legal backup if something goes wrong.
George Bonser
If I had a catchy quip, it would be here.
http://www.debian.org
Debian/GNU Linux ... the maintainable operating system.
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