I'd love to have a version of SIMS that ran on OSX. If they made the SIMS source open, I have the programming skills to make it happen. If I, or someone else, took that code and ported it to OSX/BSD/Linux/etc. it would take away from Stalker's Communigator Pro market.
I think that is startlingly optimistic about the nature of the SIMS code and the ease of a port, and also somewhat naive about the world of free mail servers for Unix-like systems.
I agree with Bill, and will raise one particularly nasty specter: security. With all due respect to the fine programmers at Stalker, my guess is that the SIMS code is a nightmare of buffer exploits and security holes big enough to drive -both- Saddam and Osama through. This is/was not generally a problem for OS9 for the usual set of reasons, but even if, optimistically, SIMS could be reasonably ported to OSX, it would be insane to release it on the world without a -long- vetting process. And even then, there would be holes. Speaking for myself, as a programmer, I believe I could contribute to an open source effort on SIMS, but I would advocate that it stay on OS9 exclusively until the source code is thoroughly analyzed, which is to say, it might well take forever.
I hate that Stalker might grasp this as another reason to not release the code, but there's no point to avoiding a frank discussion.
To add my 2 cents to the Stalker response:
Stalker Software is a software development company, and not an "open-source development" company. Currently we see no sense in openening the source code of any of our products.
I believe these 2 sentences have nothing to do with one another, and the purveyors of this official response should rethink the logic. Bill made some fine comments that should be considered. This is not to claim that Stalker's -decision- is right or wrong. Only their justification :-) I do see a sense of pride in making that statement though - Stalker's rep is important to the people of Stalker.
From myself, I can only promise that if I have some spare time in the nearest future, I'll try to do my best to figure out that spot in the queue management code to fix the problem with temp rejection of addresses.
Thanks Dmitry, I appreciate the kind intention and hope that you can indeed work on it.
The reason I brought the 4xx issue up to begin with is because it is more than reasonably considered a bug. As far as Stalker's responsibility toward this and other bugs, I refer Stalker to their sense of reputation noted above: if you are a software development company, then be one. 'Nuff said.
I also refer Stalker to comments made on this list that documentation issues prevent final closure to the development of SIMS. If you want to close out SIMS and prevent these sorts of discussions from arising, then close it out.
Feature additions are another matter - it is perfectly reasonable to stop development at an arbitrary point, especially for a free product. But all obvious bugs (not just the 4xx bug) should be fixed.
Please pass my comment on to the purveyors of official Stalker policy. I know you're just the in-between guy, Dmitry.
Regards,
Stefan Jeglinski
############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
