Subject: Re: Sendmail 8.9.0?
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: current-users
Date: 05/29/1998 01:16:32
[sendmail 8.9.0 license snippet]
>>   (b) Redistributions are accompanied by a copy of the Source Code or by
>>       an irrevocable offer to provide a copy of the Source Code at the
>>       cost of materials and delivery.
[and as has been poinetd out, the "irrevocable offer to provide" part
binds anyone attempting to take advantage of it in perpetuity and hence
almost might as well have been left out entirely.]

> I don't understand why [being unable to withhold source] causes such
> great alarm among the advocates of BSD-style "freedom."

Speaking as one such, I can answer for myself: because it is, in my
opinion, blatantly hypocritical.  "We're going to make software free by
restricting what you can do with it".  Huh?

Sorry, Jack.  If you want to call it free, make it *free*.  For
example, I've been putting my stuff into the public domain recently
(where "recently" is the last year or two - essentially, since I
reached this point in my thinking on the subject).  Calling GPLed stuff
"free" in any but a monetary sense is, in my opinion, like the (common)
misuse of "open" to mean "proprietary" by software vendors: pure
doublespeak.  (Most of my stuff, that is - but the stuff that I
haven't, I don't tout as freeware.)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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