Re: PINE Debian Package
On Mon, 20 Apr 1998, robert havoc pennington wrote:
> That can't be right. One, because it could still go in non-free, only with
> a different name. Debian doesn't yank stuff from non-free unless it's
> illegal to have on the ftp server (in which case it has to be yanked, no
> matter what our politics). Two, because I just downloaded it.
> See:
>
> http://cgi.debian.org/www-master/debian.org/Packages/stable/non-free/pine.html
>
> Relax, I think it's still there.
>
Ah, but if you look at
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/hamm/non-free/binary-i386/mail
It is gone! I distinctly remember seeing a recent discussion that if you
want pine you will have to download the source and compile it yourself.
The source of my irritation is that this is a result of some
"reinterpretation" by someone in debian.
I quote from the copyright:
...
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee to the University of
Washington is hereby granted, provided that these legal notices appear in
all copies and supporting documentation, that the name "Pine" is retained,
and that the name of the University of Washington is not used in
advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
without specific, written prior permission. This software is made
available "as is".
Although the above trademark and copyright restrictions do not convey the
right to redistribute derivative works, the University of Washington
encourages unrestricted distribution of patch files which can be applied
to the University of Washington Pine distribution.
...
Someone in Debian saw that second paragraph and thought "gee, we make a
patch file to create our package so we must have a derivative work".
We have to distribute the debianization as a separate file in source form
only.
I think that is incorrect and I further suspect that nobody contacted
washington.edu to make sure. I will bet that what debian does is ok
since we are doing only what the end user has to do anyhow. It is simply
a matter of someone taking an interpretation to an extreme. Nowhere does
it say in that copyright that you can not distribute a binary. That is
all that debian is doing.
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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