Well. Anyone want to venture any opinions?
Mike.
--- Begin Message ---Jesse Thilo writes: > On Thu, May 29, 1997 at 09:18:48PM -0400, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > > To the terminfo.src maintainer, > > c'est moi > > Since when? (Seriously) Mr. Dickey appears to have decided that hijacking one project and screwing over Zeyd and myself wasn't enough for him. Now he's asserting control of the terminfo database I maintain, as well. This is only the latest instance of a pattern of arrogance and treachery. While Thomas Dickey's technical work on ncurses has undoubted merit, his behavior towards the two copyright holders and senior maintainers (Zeyd and myself) has been not only grossly unethical but, under U.S. copyright law and the Berne Convention, actually unlawful. I've had enough of this. Repeated attempts by myself and others to get Thomas Dickey to account for his behavior have failed. He won't answer my mail. He has repeatedly ignored Zeyd benHalim's protests about the unauthorized 4.0 and 4.1 releases. He has altered credits on the ncurses distribution without authority to do so and without the consent of the persons affected. As one of the copyright owners of ncurses, I have the legal right to forbid Thomas Dickey from distributing or modifying the ncurses sources. I have refrained from exercising it because I felt I had more important things to do than get in a pissing match with a skunk. I'm afraid I have allowed disgust at this prospect, and the well-meaning but misguided advice of others, to paralyze me for six months. My tolerance, and my paralysis, is ended. Since neither attempts at negotiation nor the customary norms of cooperative behavior in the hacker community seem to mean anything to Mr. Dickey, it's time for force majeure. Exercising my legal rights, I have just deleted the unauthorized 4.1 release from prep.ai.mit.edu. I now forbid Thomas Dickey from redistributing, modifying, or otherwise using the ncurses sources without the explicit permission of Zeyd BenHalim and myself, the copyright holders. He is enjoined to desist immediately under penalty of law. I am copying this note to the administrators of clark.net and to the ncurses lists. All parties should consider themselves notified that Mr. Dickey and clark.net no longer have the copyright holders' permission to carry ncurses sources and are required to delete them from clark.net's FTP areas and all other file areas of clark.net, under penalty of law. (Permission for clark.net to carry these sources will be granted once I am satisfied that Mr. Dickey is no longer in a position to use clark.net to violate Mr. benHalim's and my rights.) I ask all members of the ncurses lists to shun Thomas Dickey, beginning immediately and continuing unless and until he makes a public agreement to respect the rights and project seniority of Zeyd BenHalim and myself. Under no circumstances will he be permitted to control future distributions. I'll see to that if I have to have him sued or thrown in jail to ensure it. The ncurses sources were written as free software and will so remain; my exercise of rights is a specific response to Thomas Dickey's repeated unethical behaviors and his usurpation of the software, and I have no intention to prevent others from using the sources in all customary ways. I will open a 4.2 archive hosted at snark by next Wednesday (it would be sooner but I'm traveling this weekend). In the interest of neutralizing any possible feeling that I merely wish to selfishly control the project, I will also accept (and am confident Zeyd benHalim as senior maintainer will support) self-nomination by any third parties of good reputation on the ncurses list to take on the roles of principal maintainers. After a suitable probationary period, the present copyright holders will assign rights to those maintainers. If no suitable persons come forward, I will maintain the source tree myself until such time as I can hand off the job to a competent and ethical maintainer. -- <a href="http://www.ccil.org/~esr";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
--- End Message ---
