I posted a sample WebUI for review, and back in July 12 one
of the uClibc development team wrote me. I didn't notice the message
until yesterday. The message was a very polite query, and I think a
response to the list is warranted. Basically, it was "who are you,
and why won't you release your source code, when what you are using
is GPL'ed?"
By day I am part of the IT staff for a large organization that is
not involved in providing IT services or products. All of my IT
work is done for internal organizational consumption. (e.g. keep
the file servers and email servers running.) We (Organization) have
no interest in promoting open source other than for internal use.
That having been said, we the IT guys definitely get OpenSource,
and /want/ to contribute. The directive from our management
is that we can release stuff we write GPL'ed or any other way,
as long as it A) Isn't branded (e.g. internal logos, passwords,
our business rules coded in, etc.) and B) We don't release it in
the organization's name.
I understand their position, and everyone's trying to play fair
here. But the rules are: I can release code, but it has to be in
my name, and I have to make sure that it isn't branded. So, when
you see my email domain, that's me (the individual). When you see
www.tetrasec.net, that me (the individual) too.
----
We worked on a project that involves clusters of "LEAF"-like boxes
that act as a set of perimieter networks for our branch offices.
I say "LEAF"-like because its a pretty big fork of the old Bering
code, with some of everyone else's ideas thrown in. These things
boot from CD, and are coded to have our business rules built in
(For example, I have to deal with "this person can send email, that
person can only send to certain domains, and that third person can't
send email at all.") Back when J. Nilo was maintaining Bering,
I talked with him briefly about merging some of our ideas (the
sane ones - not the example of email usage!) into Bering. He was
more interested in a single-diskette distro than a full-fleged CD.
I respect his position, and think he was right.
One of the things that the cluster includes is a web-based interface.
Years and years ago we had discussions on this list about web
interfaces. After actually seeing one in production, I'm now a
passionate believer.
According to my rules of conduct, I can release the web-configuration
engine, but just have to make sure that the business rules (and
look&feel .e.g. css stylesheets) are changed. A few months ago
I had a brief off-list conversation with Erik Spakman regarding
suggestions for developing the webconf into a package.
Our architecture is:
pointers to the cgi's, for building the menu:
/var/lib/lrpkg/pkgname.webconf
the cgis:
/var/www/.../blah.cgi
/var/www/.../blah2.cgi
This means when you load a lrp, the webinterface for /that package/
automatically shows up. Erik suggested that it might help adoption
if I just left all of the cgi's and webconf's in my own .lrp.
So I set off to create a web configuration engine for review by
the LEAF folks, using stuff /based/ on the engine I wrote for our
organization. Since I needed new look&feel, and I was targeting
uClibc, I ripped the css and images from the leaf.sourceforge.net
site.
I was working on this little demo when Mike Noyes mentioned to the
list that we really needed a web interface. So I have: a running
system that's branded, and is part of a cluster, but works ok - and
this little demo box. The demo box wasn't ready for prime time,
but I wanted to share what I had so I posted
>I'm not at liberty to give the whole web thing away, but
>if anyone is interested I could peel off a few cgi's as a demo.
What I meant was, I *know* this approach works in production and
works well enough, but all I have available is my little demo box,
with just a few cgi's that I've completed.
In hindsight, what I actually said was "I've got this thing based
on your hard work that you've released under the GPL. I can give
you a peek, but you can't have it."
That is not what I meant, and I'm sorry. Mike Noyes was still
nice enough to ask if I could play nice and donate the code.
My perspective - I was thrilled that I could participate, and
immediately tried to package my little demo box up for review.
I make things worse by my next post:
>I put out a sample of a web configuration out for review, its
>based on what we are currently using, although somewhat crippled
>- I just pulled a few pages out of a running system, and hacked
>them to work with UCBering...
Crippled was a very poor choice of words. I meant crippled in the
sense of "I only got 2 web pages working ...", but it comes across
as if I'm deliberatly witholding the code. Again, that's not what
I meant.
The guts of the system are *ALL* there:
/var/webconf/validator.sh - validates input
/var/webconf/svcstat.cgi - the thing that
prints the start/stop/restart buttons
/var/webconf/preamble.cgi - the menu builder
/ presentation layer
plus the cgi interpreter and other support junk.
All of the above is considered GPL code - use it as you wish.
(Again, in hindsight, I should have had more discipline and actually
put the copyright notice in each file. I'll fix that.)
One crippled part of the package is the "SAVE" buttons. The reason
for that is our boxes run from cd, we use our own hacked "apkg"
(available at www.tetrasec.net), and save just the .local files
to floppy. We have a controlled environment, which is not true
for uCBering - I wanted to show what was possible, but I'm not sure
yet how to handle the "boot only from floppy OR possibly boot from
CD" situation.
In the reference system, we can preload alot of the configuration
data, so we don't allow the end user to ever edit keyboard,
dnscache, modules, or even hostname - so I don't have any prior art
for that, and that's the first thing a standard uClibc box would
need configured. On the other hand, I have pages to configure
chrony as an ntpserver/client - but uCBering doesn't use that :-(
So more work needs to be done on the little demo package.
----
Rereading my posts from a fresh perspective, and then looking at my
website - I can understand your concern - here's some guy ripping
our images, stylesheets, code, everything - and then won't give
it back...
All I can say is "wow" You all are /very/ professional. If anyone
deserves to be flamed, its me! Thank you for your kind moderation.
To clarify, however: *Anything* you find on www.tetrasec.net is
open-source, GPL. I post stuff there to share with you, and you
are free to use it or ignore.
----
The apology: I've been with you for a long time. I still have
my 2.0.35 LRP diskette. But when it comes to posting back, I'm
obviously a clueless newbie. I'm sorry for the confusion and
frustration I may have caused you all.
I've leared some valuable lessons from this, and hope that I can
still contribute to the team effort. Thank you for your patience.
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