[ydl-gen] Re: pine: was: Re: JOB POSTING: Application Evangelist

[Mark Guertin]

On 29-Aug-05, at 11:50 AM, Eric Dunbar wrote:

> On 8/29/05, Mark Guertin <guertin at brucemaudesign.com> wrote:
>
>> I would suggest you direct your complaints to the creators of pine in
>> this case.  Most distros are released under the GNU license, and
>> their proprietary licensing makes this not possible.
>>
>
> As has been mentioned, legally UW is limited from using the GNU  
> licence.
>

There are a great many licenses to choose from aside from GPL.

>
>> Also it is a big liability to the distribution to release
>> applications that they have no control over, picture this scenerio
>> for a moment if you will;  a buffer overflow exploit is found in pine
>> that gives root privileges.  How does the distro respond to this?
>> Does it email it's entire userbase and advise them that a program
>> that was supplied to them through their distribution is now unsafe
>> and they are unable to do anything about it, and that until the
>> vendor manages to put out a patch for it they should uninstall it?
>>
>
> As has also been mentioned, this (no control) is a red herring. UW is
> particularly good about fixing its problems *and* this app has
> undergone enough iterations of troubleshooting that its quality is far
> higher than that of the average GNU app that people run! Plus, it is
> possible to patch, if necessary.
>
>
>> I suspect these are the exact reason that it is not included as it is
>> a large liability.  You are venting your frustrations on the wrong
>> parties here.  Talk to the creators of pine to release in an approved
>> license and you will probably see it get picked back up by the  
>> distros.
>>
>
> This is not a liability. OSS is provided *as is*, even in support  
> environments.
>

I wasn't talking about a legal liability, I'm talking about a support  
liability.  I don't blame them for one minute for not including  
something that doesn't fit their model licensing scheme.

>
>> Until that point if you want that sort of software you'll have to get
>> used to downloading it from other sources and/or possible compiling
>> it yourself.
>>
>
> The problem is that most people are not able to do so and they would
> benefit from it. It is *not* UW's place to conform to what
> GNU-fan(atics) (fundmanetalists) want, but for GNU-based distros to
> provide their users with an exceptional tool.
>
>

If users are not able to use yum or download a src rpm and compile it  
then they should probably rethink using linux for a desktop OS.

>> All of your arguments are for naught, this thread is  a waste of
>> bandwidth.
>>
>
> They're not for naught b/c they do expose the problems with
> fundamentalism (of course, many of us do recognise that absolutes are
> fundamentally destructive), and, they let people know what they are
> missing out on because of some people's blindness.
>

Firstly, I'd like to say that I take offense to being labelled a "GNU- 
fan(atics) (fundmanetalists)", if in doubt you can ask RMS on some of  
the discussions I've had with him in the past ;)  If you want to talk  
to some real fundamentalists take this thread to a debian list! :P    
This discussion is not about fundamentalism at all.

The decision not to include was made at the redhat/fedora level and  
YDL followed suit, as have most other distros.  There are a great  
many applications that are not included in Fedora, Yellow Dog,  
Debian, etc. but I don't see anyone else going on long winded rants  
because they are not included just because it's something they enjoy  
using ... especially when they are freely available applications that  
you can download and install yourself!  There are other command line  
mail applications included with the distro that do a fine job.

I use pine, I downloaded the src rpm and compiled it for YDL and am  
quite happy with it.  I even provided a link to a pre-compiled  
version for users on this list, so don't get me wrong on this, I'm  
not against using pine, but I do understand the reasoning for not  
including it in a distro when there are other options that are easier  
to support available.  In other words, you're wasting your time on  
this as your ranting is not likely to change things.

Mark


> And, yes, this thread isn't exactly going anywhere, but, that's not
> why most people post anyway, now is it ;-)
>
> Eric.
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