Subject: More on Exim, GPL and the IPR license

From: "Peuhkurinen, Kevin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:22:35 -0400

I hate to keep harping on this, but I really do believe that it is important.   I solicited the opinion of Dr. Philip Hazel of Cambridge University who as you probably know is the principal author of Exim.   I asked him if he would consider releasing Exim under a difference license other than the GPL if doing so would allow Sender-ID code to be included in it.   His response was:

"The short answer is "No". 

I have no desire to change Exim's licence, and certainly not as a result 
from pressure of Microsoft's lawyers. Furthermore, some of the other
postings I've seen have said that developers using this "free" licence
must register with Microsoft. That is completely unacceptable."

I believe that Dr. Hazel's response demonstrates two things.   The first is that one of the most popular MTAs in use will not be able to include Sender-ID code.   The second is that a very well respected open source developer sees the IPR license terms as "completely unacceptable".

Kevin

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From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:02:34 -0700

T here is a rule in the House of Commons that whenever a document is
referred to the entirety of the document must be lodged in the house
library, rather than just the portions that are quoted.
 
What was the letter sent to Dr Hazel? What are the grounds on which his
statement is based? What is the context of the excerpt?
 
It seems somewhat strange that Dr Hazel would take this position when he has
in the past taken a much more open approach to licensing:

Written by: Philip Hazel <  <http://lists.gnu.org/spam.html>
[email-masked]>

University of Cambridge Computing Service,
Cambridge, England. Phone:  <redacted> 

Copyright (c) 1997-2000 University of Cambridge

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose on any
computer system, and to redistribute it freely, subject to the following
restrictions:

1. This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

2. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented, either by
   explicit claim or by omission. In practice, this means that if you use
   PCRE in software which you distribute to others, commercially or
   otherwise, you must put a sentence like this

     Regular expression support is provided by the PCRE library package,
     which is open source software, written by Philip Hazel, and copyright
     by the University of Cambridge, England.

   somewhere reasonably visible in your documentation and in any relevant
   files or online help data or similar. A reference to the ftp site for
   the source, that is, to

      <ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/>
ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/

   should also be given in the documentation.

3. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
   misrepresented as being the original software.

4. If PCRE is embedded in any software that is released under the GNU
   General Purpose Licence (GPL), then the terms of that licence shall
   supersede any condition above with which it is incompatible.

I hate to keep harping on this, but I really do believe that it is
important.   I solicited the opinion of Dr. Philip Hazel of Cambridge
University who as you probably know is the principal author of Exim.   I
asked him if he would consider releasing Exim under a difference license
other than the GPL if doing so would allow Sender-ID code to be included in
it.   His response was:

I believe that Dr. Hazel's response demonstrates two things.   The first is
that one of the most popular MTAs in use will not be able to include
Sender-ID code.   The second is that a very well respected open source
developer sees the IPR license terms as "completely unacceptable".

Kevin

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:02:34 -0700

Kevin