Re: qmail license change
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Guy Hulbert wrote: On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 13:18 -0500, Matt Sergeant wrote: On 30-Nov-07, at 11:58 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Doubtful. Qpsmtpd wasn't written because of a dislike of the license. And there are quite a lot of us that don't run qmail at all. Personally I use qpsmtpd as it provides a powerful, central location to configure access, anti-spam and anti-virus controls. My backend is Postfix though and I don't use qmail anywhere. Regards James Turnbull - -- James Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] - --- Author of Pro Nagios 2.0 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590596099/) Hardening Linux (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159059/) - --- PGP Key (http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x0C42DF40) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHUUxR9hTGvAxC30ARAuBcAJ418ZwNKgtCIYvigi07QotyKZEoywCgrwXF mWLvaOnAqZ9ob9ofQgdm6AA= =R7T/ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 18:02 -0800, Ask Bjørn Hansen wrote:
On Nov 30, 2007, at 12:03 PM, Guy Hulbert wrote:
Uh - the very first version of qpsmtpd was almost a line by line port
of qmail-smtpd.
That is interesting.
If it were PD, would you have tried to build an XS interface instead ?
Does that even make sense ?
What benefit do you imagine it'd have? Which part of core qmail-
smtpd is slow in qpsmtpd-{fork,select}server? Did you look at the
qmail-smtpd code?
No but you did. That's why I'm asking. My would above is
subjunctive.
What I'm asking, is *if* the license had already been changed, *would*
you have implemented qpsmtpd via XS rather than rewriting qmail-smtpd
entirely.
Some people have previously proposed, on the list, rewriting all of
qmail in perl. I am asking if you think that makes sense, based on your
experience rewriting qmail-smtpd.
- ask
--
--gh
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 23:25 -0600, David Nicol wrote: as I understand it, the name 'qmail' is a separate property from the source code released under the name. Nope. Copyright is automatic but trademarks are not. Trademarks must be agressively protected ... and for some purposes registered. I don't think DJB has ever claimed a trademark on qmail. He released the software, not the name. (unless he released the name, too, somewhere else.) -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, Guy Hulbert wrote: On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 23:25 -0600, David Nicol wrote: as I understand it, the name 'qmail' is a separate property from the source code released under the name. Nope. Copyright is automatic but trademarks are not. Trademarks must be agressively protected ... and for some purposes registered. I don't think DJB has ever claimed a trademark on qmail. qmail has never been used in trade by djb. Ergo, not trademark protected.
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, Les Mikesell wrote: Who knows, but I'd certainly hope that someone would fix the stock smptd to not back-scatter bounce messages to the generally-forged senders of messages to recipients that don't exist. There's no need. Just delete qmail-smtpd. It's obsolete.
Re: qmail license change
Guy Hulbert wrote:
If it were PD, would you have tried to build an XS interface instead ?
Does that even make sense ?
What benefit do you imagine it'd have? Which part of core qmail-
smtpd is slow in qpsmtpd-{fork,select}server? Did you look at the
qmail-smtpd code?
No but you did. That's why I'm asking. My would above is
subjunctive.
What I'm asking, is *if* the license had already been changed, *would*
you have implemented qpsmtpd via XS rather than rewriting qmail-smtpd
entirely.
I don't think there would be a big win from this. If you run perl at
all the problem is in the memory footprint and the difficulty in keeping
shared pages across forked processes. It might be a win, though, to run
the stock front end for some operations, letting it chat with a perl
process for certain steps. The down side is that multiplexing step-wise
operations to a small number of backend processes means that variables
don't hold values for the entire delivery process.
--
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 11:40 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: What I'm asking, is *if* the license had already been changed, *would* you have implemented qpsmtpd via XS rather than rewriting qmail-smtpd entirely. I don't think there would be a big win from this. If you run perl at all the problem is in the memory footprint and the difficulty in keeping shared pages across forked processes. It might be a win, though, to run the stock front end for some operations, letting it chat with a perl process for certain steps. The down side is that multiplexing step-wise operations to a small number of backend processes means that variables don't hold values for the entire delivery process. Thanks. That's quite enlightening. I was curious about the development cost of reimplementing pieces of qmail but you seem to have answered a much more general question. -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
On Dec 1, 2007 11:18 AM, Charlie Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Copyright is automatic but trademarks are not. I don't know the exact rules, but there certainly are situations where ownership of a mark does not require registration. The best example is the saga of Torvalds recovering ownership of Linux after some bozo went and predatively registered it for himself. I think that as with copyright, registration is a prerequisite for suing for damages, but rules about fraudulent misrepresentation do not disappear. http://www.uspto.gov/teas/eTEASpageA.htm which is concerned with instructions for registering marks, includes the phrase you must be lawfully using the mark which implies that there are lawful and unlawful uses of the mark, and based on knowing about the Linux dispute I believe that it is possible to unlawfully use a mark that has not been formally registered. I don't have any idea about Australia though. :)
Re: qmail license change
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 David Nicol wrote: I don't have any idea about Australia though. :) My understanding in Australia is that it is based on both precedence/actual use and registration. China and the EU don't recognise 'actual use' trademarks - they require registration. But since most Americans think our legal professionals ride to work on kangaroos the issue might be moot... :) Regards James Turnbull * * = not a lawyer - -- James Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] - --- Author of Pro Nagios 2.0 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590596099/) Hardening Linux (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159059/) - --- PGP Key (http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x0C42DF40) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHUdS79hTGvAxC30ARAsamAKDJj91Tz1KRRAflt7Gu1KrSCLraFACfbOOx pClm8rf0Qgr5gVcqIYsshkc= =JwLT -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: qmail license change
All this talk of trademarks is pointless. If you want to respect DJB's contribution, don't name it qmail, period. You don't have any legal obligation to, but there's a pretty strong moral obligation. Not to mention that it would be quite confusing for someone to start releasing a package called qmail - we'd have qmail (from djb), net-qmail, and qmail (new release) or something like that. If you want to hack on it, just call it qmail-new or something totally different. Problem solved. Regards, Brian Szymanski -- Brian Szymanski email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
On Dec 1, 2007, at 6:51 AM, Guy Hulbert wrote: What I'm asking, is *if* the license had already been changed, *would* you have implemented qpsmtpd via XS rather than rewriting qmail-smtpd entirely. How much thought did you give to this? :-) It doesn't make any sense. For starters, qmail-smtpd isn't actively developed - there's no code base or community improving on that code. It might not have been in 2001, but as Charlie said, it's obsolete now. Second - the functionality is so barebones there's nothing to reuse without significantly hacking up that code. The initial functional port was just a couple hundred lines of Perl - including DNSBL and RHSBL support. Third - nothing qmail-smtpd does is significantly faster in C than in Perl (the typical reason other than code reuse to do XS). The performance and scalability paths to make an smtpd server scale better are in an event model (like we have with the select server). - ask -- http://develooper.com/ - http://askask.com/
Re: qmail license change
On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 14:42 -0600, David Nicol wrote: On Dec 1, 2007 11:18 AM, Charlie Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Copyright is automatic but trademarks are not. I don't know the exact rules, but there certainly are situations where ownership of a mark does not require registration. The Defense is required but not registration. best example is the saga of Torvalds recovering ownership of Linux after some bozo went and predatively registered it for himself. I think that as with copyright, registration is a prerequisite for suing for damages, This is not true for copyright in countries which have signed the Berne convention. At one time it was necessary in the US to claim all rights reserved but no longer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works but rules about fraudulent misrepresentation do not disappear. http://www.uspto.gov/teas/eTEASpageA.htm which is concerned with instructions for registering marks, includes the phrase you must be lawfully using the mark which implies that there are lawful and unlawful uses of the mark, and based on knowing about the Linux dispute I believe that it is possible to unlawfully use a mark that has not been formally registered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. etc etc I don't have any idea about Australia though. :) -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 16:10 -0800, Ask Bjørn Hansen wrote: On Dec 1, 2007, at 6:51 AM, Guy Hulbert wrote: What I'm asking, is *if* the license had already been changed, *would* you have implemented qpsmtpd via XS rather than rewriting qmail-smtpd entirely. How much thought did you give to this? :-) Not all that much. It doesn't make any sense. That's a partial answer. For starters, qmail-smtpd isn't actively developed - there's no code base or community improving on that code. It might not have been in 2001, but as Charlie said, it's obsolete now. Have you looked at qmail.org recently ? Second - the functionality is so barebones there's nothing to reuse without significantly hacking up that code. The initial functional Thanks. That's what I wanted to know. port was just a couple hundred lines of Perl - including DNSBL and RHSBL support. Third - nothing qmail-smtpd does is significantly faster in C than in Perl (the typical reason other than code reuse to do XS). The performance and scalability paths to make an smtpd server scale better are in an event model (like we have with the select server). Code reuse is the issue I was interested in. - ask -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, David Nicol wrote: On Dec 1, 2007 11:18 AM, Charlie Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Copyright is automatic but trademarks are not. I didn't say that - Guy Hulbert did.
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 13:25 -0600, David Nicol wrote: This looks to me like, although he has PD'd the package, he intends to retain the restrictions on the qmail brand. Nonsense. Read Stallman on public domain. -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
David Nicol skribis 2007-11-30 13:25 (-0600): This looks to me like, although he has PD'd the package, he intends to retain the restrictions on the qmail brand. There appear to no longer be any restrictions. It may not be encouraged to make changes, but it is certainly *allowed*. The please... language protecting the qmail mark is pretty weak though. Which interface does he mean? Probably the configuration syntaxes, component input/output/exitvalues, paths. -- Met vriendelijke groet, Kind regards, Korajn salutojn, Juerd Waalboer: Perl hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://juerd.nl/sig Convolution: ICT solutions and consultancy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
On Nov 30, 2007, at 12:03 PM, Guy Hulbert wrote:
Uh - the very first version of qpsmtpd was almost a line by line port
of qmail-smtpd.
That is interesting.
If it were PD, would you have tried to build an XS interface instead ?
Does that even make sense ?
What benefit do you imagine it'd have? Which part of core qmail-
smtpd is slow in qpsmtpd-{fork,select}server? Did you look at the
qmail-smtpd code?
- ask
--
http://develooper.com/ - http://askask.com/
Re: qmail license change
David Nicol wrote: This looks to me like, although he has PD'd the package, he intends to retain the restrictions on the qmail brand. If he's made it PD, he cannot impose any restrictions. The please recognizes that fact, and simply expresses a wish that people playing with qmail don't break other people's work.
Re: qmail license change
Uh - the very first version of qpsmtpd was almost a line by line port of qmail-smtpd. - ask -- http://develooper.com On Nov 30, 2007, at 11:42, Guy Hulbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 13:18 -0500, Matt Sergeant wrote: On 30-Nov-07, at 11:58 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Doubtful. Qpsmtpd wasn't written because of a dislike of the license. There have been proposals to extend Qpsmtpd to do more than qmail- smtpd (indeed it already does). This license change makes it unnecessary. It might be better to build XS modules on top of the existing qmail code-base as the underlying code is well-tested. Is qmail asynchronous ;-) An interesting move though. Matt. -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
Guy Hulbert wrote: Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Doubtful. Qpsmtpd wasn't written because of a dislike of the license. There have been proposals to extend Qpsmtpd to do more than qmail-smtpd (indeed it already does). This license change makes it unnecessary. It might be better to build XS modules on top of the existing qmail code-base as the underlying code is well-tested. Is qmail asynchronous ;-) Or can it be extended with a milter-like interface to multiplex slow operations to a smaller set of perl processes the way sendmail and MimeDefang work? -- Les Mikesell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
David Nicol wrote: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html at this moment in time says: QUOTE I hereby place the qmail package (in particular, qmail-1.03.tar.gz, with MD5 checksum 622f65f982e380dbe86e6574f3abcb7c) into the public domain. You are free to modify the package, distribute modified versions, etc. This does not mean that modifications are encouraged! Please take time to ensure that your distribution of qmail supports exactly the same interface as everyone else's. In particular, if you move files, please set up symbolic links from the original locations, so that you don't frivolously break scripts that work everywhere else. END QUOTE This looks to me like, although he has PD'd the package, he intends to retain the restrictions on the qmail brand. I take this notice to mean that one would now be free to paste snippets of qmail source code into other projects at will without fear of copyright-based reprisal. The please... language protecting the qmail mark is pretty weak though. Which interface does he mean? Who knows, but I'd certainly hope that someone would fix the stock smptd to not back-scatter bounce messages to the generally-forged senders of messages to recipients that don't exist. Which is probably the big reason why a lot of people run qpsmtpd. -- Les Mikesell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 13:18 -0500, Matt Sergeant wrote: On 30-Nov-07, at 11:58 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Doubtful. Qpsmtpd wasn't written because of a dislike of the license. There have been proposals to extend Qpsmtpd to do more than qmail-smtpd (indeed it already does). This license change makes it unnecessary. It might be better to build XS modules on top of the existing qmail code-base as the underlying code is well-tested. Is qmail asynchronous ;-) An interesting move though. Matt. -- --gh
Re: qmail license change
Les Mikesell skribis 2007-11-30 10:58 (-0600): Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Hmm... qpsmtpd can now be distributed together with qmail. That'd be a nice step towards a scriptable MTA. -- Met vriendelijke groet, Kind regards, Korajn salutojn, Juerd Waalboer: Perl hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://juerd.nl/sig Convolution: ICT solutions and consultancy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail license change
On 30-Nov-07, at 11:58 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: Is the license change on qmail likely to change the direction of qpsmtpd? Doubtful. Qpsmtpd wasn't written because of a dislike of the license. An interesting move though. Matt.
Re: qmail license change
On Nov 30, 2007 7:46 PM, Chris Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David Nicol wrote: This looks to me like, although he has PD'd the package, he intends to retain the restrictions on the qmail brand. If he's made it PD, he cannot impose any restrictions. The please recognizes that fact, and simply expresses a wish that people playing with qmail don't break other people's work. as I understand it, the name 'qmail' is a separate property from the source code released under the name. He released the software, not the name. (unless he released the name, too, somewhere else.) If one were to, for instance, package up a MTA created by modifying a stock qmail by ripping out qmail-smtpd and putting qpsmtpd in its place, and call that qmail, or even qmail 1.03, would that be acceptable? Clearly it is acceptable to distribute such a bundle now; I'm just talking about what to call it.
Re: qmail license change
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:55 -0800, Ask Bjørn Hansen wrote: Uh - the very first version of qpsmtpd was almost a line by line port of qmail-smtpd. That is interesting. If it were PD, would you have tried to build an XS interface instead ? Does that even make sense ? - ask -- --gh
