Re: [leganii@surfree.com: Re: FWD: C-Kermit & potato]
> Frank da Cruz <fdc@watsun.cc.columbia.edu> writes:
>
> > That's a fine point. You can modify the code all you want but since
> > I have to support it now and forever, I need to get the changes.
>
> This is a foolish argument; it's incorrect. You don't have to support
> forked code branches at all. Nobody is asking you to.
>
I don't think we need to be calling each other foolish, Thomas.
The Kermit Project writes and supports Kermit software. Our name is on
it. We take hundreds of support calls every day. The fact that you
might not think we are responsible for a forked version does not reduce
our workload.
Scenario: User calls with a problem, we have a long and frustrating
dialog trying to ascertain exactly what software they have and its
lineage. Eventually we discover it is a forked version of which we have
no knowledge. We tell them we can't help. They hate us and we hate
ourselves for not being able help them. Meanwhile, this has taken up the
time of at least two real persons, cost us goodwill, damaged our
reputation, and frustrated and angered the end user.
Worse scenario: Same as above, but this time there is no way to even tell
it is a forked version, since whoever changed it didn't bother to change
the identification info. Why should they? They have the liberty not to.
Another bad scenario: Malicious hacker changes the software to cause damage
or offense and redistributes it all over the world. It still has the
Columbia University name on it. Columbia University is sued and/or its
reputation suffers; I lose my job for releasing software with a license
that allows this to happen.
Anwyay, this is a pointless discussion. Whatever was going to be settled
is already settled as far as I know:
Vaidhyanathan Mayilrangam <vaidhy@loonys.net> wrote on Thu, 6 Jan 2000:
> The kermit debs are now available at
> http://master.debian.org/~vaidhy/kermit. The ckermit directory has the
> full featured, non-free ckermit and gkermit has the GPL'd gkermit.
>
> This is a temporary location for the kermit packages. They will be moved
> over to woody once woody opens as unstable.
>
As of just now (14 January 2000, 14:00 EST), the Debian site:
http://packages.debian.org/ckermit
still has:
Release Quality Package (size)
stable 100% ckermit 193-3 (716.7k)
A serial and network communications package.
unstable 100% ckermit 195-1 (958.2k)
A serial and network communications package.
Responses 1-2 of 2 responses shown.
Are we still waiting for "woody to open as unstable" (I'm not sure what
that means)?
- Frank
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