[ getting somewhat off-topic, but this issus bothers me ]
On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > Is qmail not a "free software product" ? What is a "free software product" ?
> See the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).
> http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html QMail fails clauses 3 and 4,
> that is it cannot be redistributed in binary form and you cannot
> distribute derivitive works.
I looked at the guidelines for QMail, and it just looks to me like the
author reserves some QA on any distributed forms. Qmail doesn't *prohibit*
distribution of binaries or modified source, it just requires that you run
it past the author first.
But more importantly...
Who died and made the Debian Project judge of what's free? I dislike
movements that assume the user base is stupid and can't make up its own
mind on what's "free" enough. The freeware concept gained acceptance in
the public long before Debian saw the need to draw boundaries around it.
To be certain, there are a number of models out there that push the
envelope and aren't universally considered "free"; two examples are Kermit
and the semi-commercial Qt toolkit on which KDE is based. So you have
different visions of what's acceptable; Qt is supplied with the Caldera
distribution of Linux but not Red Hat.
To listen to BSD folk, there's a strong case to be made why the BSD
license (which allows binary-only distributions) is *more* free than the
GPL.
It's possible to be highly exclusive or highly inclusive wrt what one
considers freeware. Both approaches have their advantages; neither is
inherantly superior unless you buy into the FSF political dogma.
There are many reasons for deciding whether or not to build Qmail support
into exim; Debian's definition of freeware should not be such a reason.
- Evan
--
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http://www.exim.org/ ***
