[CLUE-Talk] Sendmail Rumors...

[Jeffery C. Cann]

On Wednesday 15 November 2000 16:16, you wrote:

> This article seeds the rumor that sendmail will no longer be an open
> source project. The last time I checked I thought that the GPL didn't let
> authors rescind their software

This is true for software released under the GPL or LGPL.  Sendmail is not 
released under the GPL version.  I checked the GNU software map 
http://www.gnu.org/gnulist/production/listing.html and did not find sendmail.

I checked sendmail.org and could not easily find information about their 
license.  So, I downloaded the sendmail 8.11.1.  The sendmail LICENSE is 
attached.  The short answer is that it is NOT GPL.

This is why Open Source licensing / branding is a Bad Idea (IMHO) compared to 
GPL.  GPL protects things like this from happening via the Copyleft concept.  
 Read more about it at :  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html 

Based on the sendmail example, you can see why RMS does not support Open 
Source.  You can see how your rights as a user / contributor of sendmail may 
be shrugged off at the whims of the bankers backing sendmail inc.

This is a great example that illustrates the cavernous differences between 
GPL and "Open Source":

	GPL -> Rights are protected, source is required.
	Open Source -> Rights may be proteced, source may be required.

Later.
Jeff

-- 
jccann [at] home [dot] com
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