Smoothwall GPL - not quite licensed under GPL
Jason Clifford
marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
licensed under GPL.
After downloading it I checked the COPYING file to verify that it is GPL
as there is no README file etc and discovered that they have inserted a
header paragraph negating the GPL on substantial parts of the distribution
- including the installer.
It does not state the license that the overall distribution is released
under is - it cannot be GPL by my understanding of the GPL although
individual components still can.
Seems somewhat similar to the SuSE licensing issues except that Smoothwall
claims to be GPL in it's name and all of it's promotional literature.
Jason
Tim Haynes
> I've just downloaded the 0.9.9 beta of Smoothwall to have a look. It is
> marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
> licensed under GPL.
Indeed. (I presume, as a sanity check, it's the same `GNU Public License'
that they think GPL stands for, ie that this is not a trademark issue?)
> After downloading it I checked the COPYING file to verify that it is GPL
> as there is no README file etc and discovered that they have inserted a
> header paragraph negating the GPL on substantial parts of the
> distribution - including the installer.
Ach. Any chance you could post this, or a URL to it?
(I've been meaning to investigate this Smoothwall thing, and had a look
around the site, but couldn't see any particular files detailing the
license; I snarfed the source tarball but that has no reference to
`license' anywhere in it.)
~Tim
--
There's a shrine on the Assynt hillside |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
Made of earth and salt and rain |http://spodzone.org.uk/
Jason Clifford
> Indeed. (I presume, as a sanity check, it's the same `GNU Public License'
> that they think GPL stands for, ie that this is not a trademark issue?)
The Smoothwall web site is very clear that "Smoothwall GPL is free, free
as in libre. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License which
means that yes we also give you our source."
I cannot find any reference anywhere to to source for their installer.
> > After downloading it I checked the COPYING file to verify that it is GPL
> > as there is no README file etc and discovered that they have inserted a
> > header paragraph negating the GPL on substantial parts of the
> > distribution - including the installer.
>
> Ach. Any chance you could post this, or a URL to it?
The license? I cannot find any copy of the license anywhere open to
public view - it certainly is not included in the distribution which means
it's probably not lawfully enforcable. That raises an interesting question
as to whether it defaults back to the GPL due to their claiming in their
promotional literature that it is GPL.
Given how vocal Richard Morrell is in attacking others and claiming that
others are violating the GPL for not including copies of the source when
they redistribute Smoothwall GPL (he's several times attacked CheepLinux
in their mailing lists for this even though it is untrue and CheepLinux
were the first distributor to take Smoothwall seriously enough to offer it
to others) I think it important that they honour the GPL themselves.
Jason
Yes, by virtue of working on UKLINUX I am associated with CheepLinux
Ltd which is an affiliated company to Definite Software Ltd. I do not
however work for CheepLinux Ltd.
Tim Haynes
> On 14 Aug 2001, Tim Haynes wrote:
>
> > Indeed. (I presume, as a sanity check, it's the same `GNU Public
> > License' that they think GPL stands for, ie that this is not a
> > trademark issue?)
>
> The Smoothwall web site is very clear that "Smoothwall GPL is free, free
> as in libre. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License which
> means that yes we also give you our source."
That is correct as far as it goes.
> I cannot find any reference anywhere to to source for their installer.
URL <http://www.smoothwall.org/gpl/get/download.html> has these paragraphs:
| * uk0 London, UK (Master UK Site) - currently offline
| 0.9.8 ISO Image - HTTP - FTP
| 0.9.8 Source Code - HTTP - FTP
| 0.9.8 Developers Kit - HTTP - FTP
|
| * us0 North Carolina, US (Master US Site)
| 0.9.8 ISO Image - HTTP - FTP
| 0.9.8 Source Code - HTTP - FTP
| 0.9.8 Developers Kit - HTTP - FTP
where the `source code' HTTP link in the US gives a
smoothwall-0.9.8-cvsstuff.tar.gz whose contents are
| zsh, storm 12:04PM smooth % find . -type d
| .
| ./cvsstuff
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/cgi-bin
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/install+setup
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/install+setup/install
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/install+setup/setup
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/install+setup/libsmooth
| ./cvsstuff/smoothie/misc-progs
I've never installed Smoothwall yet so I wouldn't know how the sources in
said tarball compare to the real installer, but you might be able to
elucidate on this.
And if it's not the same thing, then maybe dropping them a mail enquiring
about the licensing concerns would be an idea?
(Obviously, the `GPL means we give you the source' argument is nothing like
the full story given what it states about redistribution et al; you could
include this factoid in an enquiry mail to them.)
> it certainly is not included in the distribution which
> means it's probably not lawfully enforcable. That raises an interesting
> question as to whether it defaults back to the GPL due to their claiming
> in their promotional literature that it is GPL.
Indeed; no idea, IANAL :)
> Given how vocal Richard Morrell is in attacking others and claiming that
> others are violating the GPL for not including copies of the source when
> they redistribute Smoothwall GPL (he's several times attacked CheepLinux
> in their mailing lists for this even though it is untrue and CheepLinux
> were the first distributor to take Smoothwall seriously enough to offer
> it to others) I think it important that they honour the GPL themselves.
Quite so. I'd hope for them to be above board, anyway.
> Jason
> Yes, by virtue of working on UKLINUX I am associated with CheepLinux
> Ltd which is an affiliated company to Definite Software Ltd. I do not
> however work for CheepLinux Ltd.
Noted :]
~Tim
--
And in the rapture and the charm, |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
Came the tranquil and the calm, |http://spodzone.org.uk/
On the ridge of the mighty Atlantic. |
Jason Clifford
> In legal terms amending the document is a breach of copyright as:
>
> Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
> of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
>
> is the first sentence of the GPL v.2 document!
I've emailed lawr...@smoothwall.org to request confirmation on the exact
licensing sitation with regard to "Smoothwall GPL" 0.9.9 beta pointing out
my concerns. If I get an answer I'll post the relevant data here.
Jason
Jason Clifford
> > I cannot find any reference anywhere to to source for their installer.
>
> URL <http://www.smoothwall.org/gpl/get/download.html> has these paragraphs:
>
> | 0.9.8 Source Code - HTTP - FTP
>
> where the `source code' HTTP link in the US gives a
> smoothwall-0.9.8-cvsstuff.tar.gz whose contents are
I am aware of this. 0.9.8 installer was released under GPL. The COPYING
file for 0.9.9 beta prefixes the standard v.2 GPL with:
===================== excerpt starts===========================
SmoothWall GPL is licenced under the GNU GPL.
Portions of SmoothWall, including the installer and the ADSL management
utilities, are licenced under modified licences which are available on
application. No modifications to either the installation libraries or
binaries and re-distribution of modified binaries based on the installer
is permitted without the owners permission. The owners of this code are
Lawrence Manning (lawr...@smoothwall.org) and Daniel Goscomb
(da...@smoothwall.org).
The rest of SmoothWall GPL are licensed under the GPL, which follows:
===================== excerpt ends===========================
This is a departure from previous licensing policy on the face of it.
I find the fact that they chose to include it in the GPL terms file a bit
trite as well but that's personal opinion.
In legal terms amending the document is a breach of copyright as:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
is the first sentence of the GPL v.2 document!
Jason
Tony Evans
Can you paraphrase it so that we don't have to read one of his normal
rants?
I mean, Smoothwall's good, but he treats the folk on the mailing list
like shit.
--
Tony Evans (ICQ : 170850)
Recommended Author : Stan Nicholls [http://www.herebedragons.co.uk/nicholls]
When all you have is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail.
Meet the wife : http://www.darkstorm.org/grete
MJ Ray
> SmoothWall GPL is licenced under the GNU GPL.
Do they mean *licensed*? It seems not. ;-)
--
MJR
Member of the Anglian Linux User Group, UK
Meets every month or so and OPN #alug on Mondays at 2000 UK
http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/
David Damerell
>I am aware of this. 0.9.8 installer was released under GPL. The COPYING
>file for 0.9.9 beta prefixes the standard v.2 GPL with:
Presumably it could be forked from 0.9.8, then?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Jason Clifford
> >I've emailed lawr...@smoothwall.org to request confirmation on the exact
> >licensing sitation with regard to "Smoothwall GPL" 0.9.9 beta pointing out
> >my concerns. If I get an answer I'll post the relevant data here.
>
> Can you paraphrase it so that we don't have to read one of his normal
> rants?
I've had a reply from Richard. The relevant section would appear to be:
=====================
We have NOT published 0.9.9 if I choose to modify the licence I will do
and I'll listen to Georg Greve and RMS when we do so. Georg Greve is a
close very close friend of the project and a personal supporter.
=====================
The rest of his message revolved around a poorly aimed personal rebuttal
against me for working for a company that is affiliated with CheepLinux
who he considers to have "screwed" Smoothwall because they sell the
product for a fiver. <shrug>
As I asked about "the beta release of 0.9.9" his claim not to have
published surprises me.
All I wanted to know was what the new licensing position was!
Jason
Jason Clifford
> >I am aware of this. 0.9.8 installer was released under GPL. The COPYING
> >file for 0.9.9 beta prefixes the standard v.2 GPL with:
>
> Presumably it could be forked from 0.9.8, then?
I've thought about doing so. It would be rather a lot of work as I would
want to fix the management scripts etc as well.
Jason
Tim Haynes
> > Can you paraphrase it so that we don't have to read one of his normal
> > rants?
>
> I've had a reply from Richard. The relevant section would appear to be:
> =====================
> We have NOT published 0.9.9 if I choose to modify the licence I will do
> and I'll listen to Georg Greve and RMS when we do so. Georg Greve is a
> close very close friend of the project and a personal supporter.
> =====================
FFS. A true open-source project can never be `not (yet) published', IMNSHO,
as the terms (read: license) that determine its openness *must* be defined
from the outset.
(Well, I mean something along those lines, anyway, someone else can
rephrase it slightly more accurately.)
> The rest of his message revolved around a poorly aimed personal rebuttal
> against me
Aha. Sociable fellow, obviously.
> As I asked about "the beta release of 0.9.9" his claim not to have
> published surprises me.
>
> All I wanted to know was what the new licensing position was!
Nice, to get a load of content-free attitude back.
. o O ( zsh# nice nice apt-get install smoothwall & )
~Tim
--
These are the days when you wish |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
your bed was already made. |http://spodzone.org.uk/
Richard Morrell
you're extremely vocal tonight. Your spelling is really good too. You
must have the spellchecker turned on.
Right.... SmoothWall is GPL - SmoothWall is free - unless you choose
to buy it from a GPL reseller (only www.linuxemporium.com is
recommended) and we have NEVER made a penny from SmoothWall nor is it
our intention.
You are brave to attack me in a forum. Why not pick up the phone call
me in my office - I'm easy to find or is that too hard for you ?
SmoothWall has made a tremendous difference to peoples ways of working
in charities, schools, colleges, housing associations worldwide. We
have literally thousands of case studies and thank you emails from
people.
You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
work on community projects. Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
advert for OpenSource and what a cool thing for all those people
working in the community to do. Instead you just made yourself look
like a prat dude.
Well done :) Kudos - Hope you feel big now.
Richard Morrell
Founder and FUNDER - SmoothWall
B.G.Fjeld
"Tony Evans" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:3b7924cc$1...@hoth.darkstorm.local...
> I mean, Smoothwall's good, but he treats the folk on the mailing list
> like shit.
No way!
The people that work with Smoothwall are very helpfull, they really want to
help and usually get things fixed too.....and that almost instantly (IRC).
And i haven't paid them a penny.
regards,
B.G. Fjeld
Tony Evans
You're obviously not reading the same posts I am. I didn't say they
didn't help, I just commented that Richard's manner on the mailing
lists is pretty surprising.
--
Tony Evans (ICQ : 170850)
Recommended Author : Stan Nicholls [http://www.herebedragons.co.uk/nicholls]
The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.
What I think about stuff : http://www.darkstorm.org/review-a-rama
Nigel Fenton
> I've just downloaded the 0.9.9 beta of Smoothwall to have a look. It is
> marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
> licensed under GPL.
Jason Clifford <ja...@uklinux.net> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.30.010814...@s1.uklinux.net>...
> I've just downloaded the 0.9.9 beta of Smoothwall to have a look. It is
> marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
> licensed under GPL.
>
Dear lovable Jason... after all the crap you go on about the licence
terms and conditions are you going to say any thing constructive about
this
product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as
an
alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
software for what it is.
James Suttie
>
>SmoothWall has made a tremendous difference to peoples ways of working
>in charities, schools, colleges, housing associations worldwide. We
>have literally thousands of case studies and thank you emails from
>people.
I'll vouch for this, I've used 0.9.8 in five voluntary sector community
centres to good effect.
>You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
>is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
>work on community projects. Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
>advert for OpenSource and what a cool thing for all those people
>working in the community to do. Instead you just made yourself look
>like a prat dude.
I must be missing some history here! Seems to me that the original post was
trying to clarify whether 0.9.9 was released under the GPL - no? I don't
think Jason was attacking you Richard - relax!
Matthew Garrett
Woodruffe wrote:
> You can be assured the License will now read correctly before the final
> release date of 25th August 2001. It will be a shame that people who have
> written personal/private code for the Smoothwall project may have to remove
> it from the free version of Smoothwall just to comply with your GPL
> idealistic bent!
If people have written personal or private code that links to GPL code
but don't wish to distribute it under the GPL, that's fine. They're not
obliged to. The only problem here is that they have no right to then
further distribute the modified code. If you're suggesting that people
should be able to modify GPLed code (the quoted paragraph certainly
makes it sound like you are) and release it under an alternative and
more restricitive license, you're really missing the point quite badly.
The authors of the GPLed code have granted you the right to modify it
and redistribute it /providing you license the resulting code under the
GPL/. Using GPLed code that is not owned by yourself in a non-GPLed and
distributed product would be a clear violation of the license.
You're welcome to do whatever you want to do with your own code, of
course. But in that case there's no problem with people having to have
code removed from it, is there?
> Time to look at the way SUSE license their code. Maybe they have the right
> idea!
SuSE have their administrative program licensed in such a way that it
doesn't meet the DFSG. Adopting a similar license for Smoothwall would
mean that it could no longer honestly be described as Free Software.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-uk.co...@srcf.ucam.org
Nick Woodruffe
>
> I've thought about doing so. It would be rather a lot of work as I would
> want to fix the management scripts etc as well.
>
Well what's stopping you then Jason? You seem more intent on knocking a
BETA product because the GPL License does not read correctly than giving
something back.
Having read your email to Lawrence and Richard, you could have saved all
your wittering on by just saying "Hey guys, maybe you should make a separate
license file for you own code cause some people may get a bit arsey if you
tag lines on the top of GPL v2".
You can be assured the License will now read correctly before the final
release date of 25th August 2001. It will be a shame that people who have
written personal/private code for the Smoothwall project may have to remove
it from the free version of Smoothwall just to comply with your GPL
idealistic bent!
Time to look at the way SUSE license their code. Maybe they have the right
idea!
Regards
Nick.W
Matthew Garrett
Morrell wrote:
> Right.... SmoothWall is GPL - SmoothWall is free - unless you choose
> to buy it from a GPL reseller (only www.linuxemporium.com is
> recommended) and we have NEVER made a penny from SmoothWall nor is it
> our intention.
The quoted text from one of the license files certainly doesn't bear any
degree of resemblance to any version of the GPL I've ever seen.
> SmoothWall has made a tremendous difference to peoples ways of working
> in charities, schools, colleges, housing associations worldwide. We
> have literally thousands of case studies and thank you emails from
> people.
That's hardly the point.
> You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
> is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
> work on community projects. Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
> advert for OpenSource and what a cool thing for all those people
> working in the community to do. Instead you just made yourself look
> like a prat dude.
Smoothwall is hardly a great advert for the Open Source movement if it
ends up licensed in such a fashion that you can't actually do anything
interesting with the source. If you're not actually planning on
releasing chunks of it under a more restrictive license than the GPL,
then you might want to actually say so as opposed to just insulting the
person who made the claim in the first place.
> Well done :) Kudos - Hope you feel big now.
Your debating style leaves something to be desired.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-uk.co...@srcf.ucam.org
neuro
news:slrn9nj7k8...@vega.invalid...
>
> [snip]
>
> I must be missing some history here! Seems to me that the original post
was
> trying to clarify whether 0.9.9 was released under the GPL - no? I don't
> think Jason was attacking you Richard - relax!
why else would Jason post in a rather public forum instead of asking Richard
or any other member of the development team wrt any licensing issues?
--
_ __ ___ _ _ _ __ ___ @well.com William Anderson www.well.com/~neuro
| '_ \ / _ \ | | | '__/ _ \ "The thing I love most about deadlines is the
| | | | __/ |_| | | | (_) | wonderful WHOOSHing sound they make as they
|_| |_|\___|\__,_|_| \___/ go past." - Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
Nigel Fenton
>
> like shit.
At last someone clever enough to realise that SmoothWall actually does
something other than contain a licence. Well done take a bow.
the second part for the sentence above is only personal conjecture.
Kind regards
Nigel Fenton
M+N Industries
Keith Willoughby
>
> Dear lovable Jason... after all the crap you go on about the licence
> terms and conditions are you going to say any thing constructive about
> this
> product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as
> an
> alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
>
> Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
Since when does beta software not count as a release? If it's been
published, then the genie is out of the bottle.
> Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
> software for what it is.
--
Keith Willoughby | Fire Jimy
This isn't TV, he isn't William Shatner
Matthew Garrett
Fenton wrote:
> Dear lovable Jason... after all the crap you go on about the licence
> terms and conditions are you going to say any thing constructive about
> this
> product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as
> an
> alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
The discussion was regarding the licensing terms of the latest version
of SmoothWall. Quality of the product is completely irrelevent to this.
I have no doubt that SmoothWall is absolutely software, but we were
talking about the fact that the license appears to have changed from
being GPL to something somewhat more restrictive.
> Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
Why change the license for a beta release?
> Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
> software for what it is.
You mean non-free?
Your newsreader appears broken. The quoted section appeared twice and
some of your line wrapping is decidedly odd.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-uk.co...@srcf.ucam.org
Nick Kew
at the keyboard of Tim Haynes <use...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk> hath written:
(disclaimer: I reserve the right to retract when sober)
> FFS. A true open-source project can never be `not (yet) published', IMNSHO,
> as the terms (read: license) that determine its openness *must* be defined
> from the outset.
Rubbish. A project becomes opensource at the point where it is published
as opensource. Having existed earlier as a private or proprietary project
should not be a barrier. I could cite several instances from my own work.
Right now, some of my modifications to SP and OpenSP are published as
opensource (improved HTTP support, and XML message reporting), while
others - either too unstable or considered unlikely to be of general
interest - remain unpublished.
>> All I wanted to know was what the new licensing position was!
>
> Nice, to get a load of content-free attitude back.
I'll believe that when I see it, as opposed to a precis that may
not be entirely impartial.
--
Nick Kew
Site Valet - the essential service for anyone with a website.
<URL:http://valet.webthing.com/>
MJ Ray
> you're extremely vocal tonight. Your spelling is really good too. You
> must have the spellchecker turned on.
Commenting on someone's spelling ability (or lack of it) is usually a
last resort, not an opening move. Anyway, to comment on the only
relevant point made and to clarify one other:
> You are brave to attack me in a forum. Why not pick up the phone call
> me in my office - I'm easy to find or is that too hard for you ?
I didn't notice any attack. I think Jason was just trying to get his
ideas straight before making an enquiry of a group which appears to
have an irrational hatred of him. It's the same reason that I posted
about ORBZ to this newsgroup (let's use the right terms) and I think I
agree with his reasoning given the tone of your post.
> You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
> is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
> work on community projects. [...]
Jason wasn't attacking himself... or anyone for that matter.
> Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great advert for OpenSource [...]
It's Open Source? I thought it was Free Software!
Paul Martin
Richard Morrell wrote:
> Right.... SmoothWall is GPL - SmoothWall is free - unless you choose
> to buy it from a GPL reseller (only www.linuxemporium.com is
> recommended) and we have NEVER made a penny from SmoothWall nor is it
> our intention.
GPL doesn't say you can't charge for copies of GPL software:
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
You have been reported to be saying something similar to "This is all
GPL software... except for the bits that aren't."
If that's the true nature of the new licence, it might be better to
rename that version to "Smoothwall Free (as in beer)" and avoid the
wrath of RMS.
Compare the situation with the "official Debian distribution" and the
non-free section of Debian.
Perhaps you could calmly (and without reference to Jason) state your
reasoning. The post to which this is a followup has all the hallmarks
of someone on the cusp of losing their temper.
--
Paul Martin <p...@zetnet.net>
John Broadbent
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 18:01:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: Richard Morrell <ric...@smoothwall.org>
To: us...@lists.smoothwall.org
Subject: [users] A comment that SmoothWall isn't GPL -
SmoothWall Users
----------------
Lawrence is getting hassled by a guy in UK who once had a small distro
called Definite Linux - long since departed from shelves around the UK,
and I'm particularly aggrieved as he works with the same company who've
been selling SmoothWall and not contributing back, even modifying it
calling it CheepLinux SmoothWall ....
I'll let you all comment back to the guy personally
We have NOTHING to hide here and its amazing how much people in the Linux
Industry can sometimes be their own worst enemies. I'd advise everyone to
read his mail - he loves the sound of his own voice so I reckon another
few thousand people reading it would be cool.
We would never ever ever hide any hassle like this from any of our users
so we'd rather you take a stance now.
Richard
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 15:32:37 +0000 (GMT)
From: Lawrence Manning <lawr...@smoothwall.org>
To: Richard Morrell <ric...@smoothwall.org>
Subject: Smoothwall GPL - not quite licensed under GPL (fwd)
Lawrence Manning
Development Team Leader and Author - SmoothWall
Email: `cat thismail|formail -z -x From:`
WWW: http://www.smoothwall.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 13:27:09 +0100 (BST)
From: Jason Clifford <ja...@uklinux.net>
To: lawr...@smoothwall.org
Subject: Smoothwall GPL - not quite licensed under GPL
Lawrence, I have some queries regarding the apparently changed license
terms for Smoothwall GPL in the beta release of 0.9.9.
All of your publicity including your web site claim that Smoothwall GPL is
licensed under the terms of the Free Software Foundations General Public
License and indeed I see that previous versions were so licensed.
Upon downloading the beta for 0.9.9 I was somewhat surprised to find the
following in the COPYING file:
===================== excerpt starts===========================
SmoothWall GPL is licenced under the GNU GPL.
Portions of SmoothWall, including the installer and the ADSL management
utilities, are licenced under modified licences which are available on
application. No modifications to either the installation libraries or
binaries and re-distribution of modified binaries based on the installer
is permitted without the owners permission. The owners of this code are
Lawrence Manning (lawr...@smoothwall.org) and Daniel Goscomb
(da...@smoothwall.org).
The rest of SmoothWall GPL are licensed under the GPL, which follows:
===================== excerpt ends===========================
This is a departure from previous licensing policy on the face of it. It
is also a breach of the FSF's copyright on their GPL license terms which
state specifically in the first sentence of the COPYING file:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
So, I am wondering what precisely are these new terms for part of
"Smoothwall GPL" and exactly which parts of "Smoothwall GPL" are covered
by which license?
Also what are the exact terms of the license under which you have released
0.9.9 beta of "Smoothwall GPL". I'd like to give a copy to someone to
evaluate but until I see the terms of the license I cannot know whether
the GPL is applicable - given your promotional material that could be a
reasonable assumption - or whether some other license that you've
neglected to include details of is supposed to be in force.
Jason Clifford
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Richard Robinson
>Jason Clifford <ja...@uklinux.net> wrote
>> marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
>> licensed under GPL.
>
>Dear lovable Jason... after all the crap you go on about the licence
>terms and conditions are you going to say any thing constructive about
>this
>product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as
>an
>alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
>
>Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
>
>Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
>software for what it is.
This flood of "attitude" is certainly going to bias me against ever
investigating it, whatever it is.
--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
Nix
> you're extremely vocal tonight. Your spelling is really good too. You
> must have the spellchecker turned on.
Starting out with ad hominem attacks is not a good way to make a good
impression on onlookers.
> Right.... SmoothWall is GPL
... except for the bits that are not, it seems. You haven't commented on
that below (the *substance* of Jason's complaint).
> recommended) and we have NEVER made a penny from SmoothWall nor is it
> our intention.
(which, of course, the GPL does not say anything about one way or the
other; case in point: the GNUPro compiler suite.)
> You are brave to attack me in a forum. Why not pick up the phone call
> me in my office - I'm easy to find or is that too hard for you ?
Nobody else can listen in then. Obviously Jason wanted a wider community
to become away (plus, to be frank, if you communicate verbally in the
same, er, aggressive manner as you write, I'd actively avoid phoning
you... email and news let people calm down before making statements in a
way in which the phone does not.)
> SmoothWall has made a tremendous difference to peoples ways of working
> in charities, schools, colleges, housing associations worldwide. We
> have literally thousands of case studies and thank you emails from
> people.
Well, good, but this doesn't address the substance of Jason's comment.
> You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
> is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
> work on community projects. Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
Neither does this.
FWIW Jason is a well-respected regular on this newsgroup and has given
up substantial amounts of his own time and money for the community;
hence, the onus is on *you* (as, I believe, a newcomer to this group) to
prove yourself qualified to attack Jason in this manner.
(In your favour you have SmoothWall. In your disfavour you have your
posting style...)
> Instead you just made yourself look
> like a prat dude.
How terribly, terribly ironic...
--
`It's all about bossing computers around. Users have to say "please".
Programmers get to say "do what I want NOW or the hard disk gets it".'
-- Richard Heathfield on the nature of programming
Keith Willoughby
> FYI
>
> Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 18:01:00 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Richard Morrell <ric...@smoothwall.org>
> To: us...@lists.smoothwall.org
> Subject: [users] A comment that SmoothWall isn't GPL -
[...]
> I'll let you all comment back to the guy personally
I assume thats why the sudden influx of Smoothwall supporters to ucol.
>
> We have NOTHING to hide here and its amazing how much people in the Linux
> Industry can sometimes be their own worst enemies. I'd advise everyone to
> read his mail - he loves the sound of his own voice so I reckon another
> few thousand people reading it would be cool.
Oh, *real* nice attitude.
>
> We would never ever ever hide any hassle like this from any of our users
> so we'd rather you take a stance now.
[snip Jason's email]
Well, Jason's email sounded perfectly reasonable to me. It seems the
people behind Smoothwall have a really bad attitude.
prich
> <snip>
> and I'm particularly aggrieved as he works with the same company who've
> been selling SmoothWall and not contributing back, even modifying it
> calling it CheepLinux SmoothWall ....
I have to comment about this.
Richard Morrell had asked us to mirror/promote/sell GPL smoothwall for
him, which we did - indeed we were the only mirror site - and the recommended GPL vendor
on the smoothwall website.
At the time of the release of 0.9.8 we made it available to our customers
but our graphics designer made the mistake of using the Redhat mandated
wording on the website - viz - This product is not a product of Red Hat®
Corporation and is not endorsed by Red Hat® Corporation. This is a product
of CheepLinux and we have no relationship with Red Hat® Corporation.
ref:
http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/page6.html
translated to :-
This product is not a product of Smoothwall® Corporation and is not
endorsed by Smoothwall® Corporation. This is a product of CheepLinux and
we have no relationship with Smoothwall® Corporation.
Which Richard took to mean that we were stealing Smoothwall and publishing
it as our own product when nothing was further from the truth as all we
were doing and all we have ever done was to sell the GPL smoothwall CD's per his
request for us to do so.
He and his people complained, we explained the genuine mistake and
modified the website the same day.
He even apologised for his email behaviour that day, citing personal
stress reasons.
Since then he has been spreading the sort of rubbish above and even
published on the Smoothwall website :-
-------------------------------------------------------------------
April 8, 2001
SmoothWall wish to point out that we do not have any relationship with the
Linux retailer CheepLinux and that they are NOT an authorised reseller of
SmoothWall. <snip>
0.9.8 is a beta - please DO NOT pay money to unauthorised resellers when
we are working hard to give you easy access to fast downloadable ISO
images and cover CDs
--------------------------------------------------------------------
He obviously did have a relationship with us .....
This was from Richard Morrell ...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:23:22 +0000
From: Richard Morrell <richard...@webbedmail.com>
To: smoothw...@lists.sourceforge.net
Cc: nick....@futurenet.co.uk, tre...@linuxuser.co.uk,
la...@uklinux.net, rla...@valinux.com, e...@valinux.com,
j...@wildfire.globalnet.co.uk,
ke...@maximumlinux.com, matthew....@futurenet.co.uk,
cos...@valinux.com, l...@valinux.com, z...@valinux.com
Subject: If anyone can help the project
<snip>
CD availability
UK - CD's of 0.9.6 will be available after Christmas on the front cover
of Internet Works magazine and will also be available at a very cost
effective price from CheepLinux via their website at www.cheeplinux.com
in the coming weeks, we will be releasing them an ISO image in the next
four or five days so give them some time to get an announcement out via
the SmoothWall website, the UKLINUX website and we'll also get this
carried in Linux Magazine, the ever helpful Linux Format and Linux User
and also in Micro Computer Mart.
<snip>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Smoothwall is GPL we have a right under the GPL to sell it, and we sell
it at the same price as we sell all other single CD GPL disks which is £4.99. It
is not up to Richard to tell us what price to sell GPL disks at or to
complain that we are not contributing back when we provide a very good
service to our customers and do not make huge profits from the sale of GPL
CD's, which AFAICS the GPL would not prevent us from doing should we
choose to do so anyway.
Lance Davis
Cheeplinux Ltd
John Ineson
> Tony Evans <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
>>
>> You're obviously not reading the same posts I am. I didn't say they
>> didn't help, I just commented that Richard's manner on the mailing
>> lists is pretty surprising.
>
> thread seems to be full of people who never posted here.
Oh they exist - you can find most of the names on
http://www.smoothwall.org/gpl/team/
> All of them have the same line in childish abuse.
Amazingly behaviour, isn't it. Dare to suggest that there's a mistake in
SmoothWall and its developers leap on you like a pack of dogs,
criticising your spelling, your employer, your previous line of work,
blaming you for code being removed...
And in spite of all the abuse, none of them has been able to explain why
portions of "SmoothWall GPL" were not actually GPL.
Funny that.
--
John Ineson
"10:42 - Big Brother plays crowd noise to disguise the sound of the live
audience". Uhhhh huh.
neuro
news:vshcl9...@sneakerpimp.fsnet.co.uk...
> In article <9lc5r7$dcq$1...@knossos.bruce>, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > Tony Evans <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
> >>
> >> You're obviously not reading the same posts I am. I didn't say they
> >> didn't help, I just commented that Richard's manner on the mailing
> >> lists is pretty surprising.
> >
> > I would be surprised if there were such a person as B.G.Fjeld.
that's a bit unfair ... we see a hell of a lot of people on the mailing
lists and on IRC, and since Richard has brought attention to this thread
(rather fairly IMHO), there will be those arriving here for the first time
with the intention of defending SmoothWall. Simply fobbing these
wellwishers off with "oh they must be someone multiposting from obtained
dialups" is a bit unfair.
> > This thread seems to be full of people who never posted here.
>
> Oh they exist - you can find most of the names on
> http://www.smoothwall.org/gpl/team/
And although I spamblock my posting name and address, my vanilla RL name is
in my sig. I have no intention, as I'm sure no-one else in the dev team
has, in flooding the ng with anonymous fake messages. If anyone does this
at all, it is undoubtedly without the blessing of anyone involved in
SmoothWall.
> > All of them have the same line in childish abuse.
>
> Amazingly behaviour, isn't it. Dare to suggest that there's a mistake in
> SmoothWall and its developers leap on you like a pack of dogs,
haven't done that
> criticising your spelling,
haven't done that
> your employer,
haven't done that
> your previous line of work,
haven't done that
> blaming you for code being removed...
haven't done that
Which developers were you specifically referring to?
> And in spite of all the abuse, none of them has been able to explain why
> portions of "SmoothWall GPL" were not actually GPL.
>
> Funny that.
As I'm about to explain in another post, there were other issues at work
when Lawrence and Dan decided that the GPL may be insufficient to protect
their work from commercial concerns. There is a difference between "unable
to explain" and "haven't explained yet".
neuro
> marketed as "Smoothwall GPL" and those producing it refer to it as
> licensed under GPL.
"marketed" ... lol ... That implies that we "sell" SmoothWall, which isn't
the case. And since the current stable download package is the 0.9.8
release, which is fully GPLed, the description is accurate.
The only people who "sell" SmoothWall in any form at present are free/cheap
Linux resellers such as Sheep^WCheepLinux and John Winters at the emporium
...
> After downloading it I checked the COPYING file to verify that it is GPL
> as there is no README file etc and discovered that they have inserted a
> header paragraph negating the GPL on substantial parts of the distribution
> - including the installer.
"substantial" ... like the UI, the VPN integration, the snort rules and
logs, the squid integration, ipchains/ipfw rule management, DMZ management,
dynamic DNS support, DHCPd control/management, PPP and modem profile
management, graphing support, et cetera ... all those are just tiny wee
ickle bits of function compared to the installer and the Alcatel Speed Touch
Home management and driver interface ... <dr.evil> riiiiiiiight </dr.evil>
I think given the level of features that SmoothWall has, and how much of
that could be reused elsewhere under the GPL, stating that "substantial"
parts of the distribution are not GPL is fallacious and is an attempt to
incite the very thread that has emerged here. There are less tabloid ways
of drawing attention to such issues.
> It does not state the license that the overall distribution is released
> under is - it cannot be GPL by my understanding of the GPL although
> individual components still can.
>
> Seems somewhat similar to the SuSE licensing issues except that Smoothwall
> claims to be GPL in it's name and all of it's promotional literature.
"Promotional literature" implies a commercial release (which it isn't), and
at any rate, the website (which is what I assume you are referring to) is
still geared towards 0.9.8, as I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread. If
it is ever deemed that SmoothWall GPL is no longer an appropriate title, you
can be sure that the website will be updated to reflect this.
neuro
news:87ae12z...@loki.wkstn.nix...
>
> [snip]
>
> FWIW Jason is a well-respected regular on this newsgroup and has given
> up substantial amounts of his own time and money for the community;
> hence, the onus is on *you* (as, I believe, a newcomer to this group) to
> prove yourself qualified to attack Jason in this manner.
>
> (In your favour you have SmoothWall. In your disfavour you have your
> posting style...)
Since Richard has sweat blood, tears and several chequebooks into
SmoothWall, I feel that to compare that point with whatever Jason has
done/spent is moot. As for posting style, it's no more bitchy than anything
else on Usenet. Granted Richard has not gone for the purely diplomatic
option, but it's still better than swearing and insults, which usually
result in <plonks>.
If you knew anything about the background of SmoothWall, and certain recent
events, you would understand why some of the developers have taken the tone
they have with their submitted code. This is not about keeping code from
the sweaty throbbing masses, but about ensuring that certain corporate
elements cannot keep the freedom of use away from SmoothWall.
In my opinion, if that means that two parts of the rather large whole cannot
be redistributed without explicit permission of the original authors, then
so be it. If peoples concerns are that it _appears_ that the entire package
is GPLed without exception, then we can always slap rather large 36pt red
letters on the download pages stating that two components of the package are
not GPLed for whatever reason, and provide the alternate licence text.
No-one is out to deceive here. Bear in mind that SmoothWall 0.9.8 is wholly
GPLed, and the website currently is geared towards 0.9.8, hence the constant
reference to "SmoothWall GPL". 0.9.9 is still in public beta, and the bulk
of the website does not reflect that, so pointing to the website bleating
"it says GPL, it says GPL" doesn't cut the mustard. The text in COPYING in
the root of the 0.9.9 beta ISO is perhaps misleading to some, but as
mentioned, 0.9.9 is still in beta and such texts can still be modified
before we do the equivalent release of RTM.
lance
Nick Woodruffe
> but don't wish to distribute it under the GPL, that's fine. They're not
> obliged to. The only problem here is that they have no right to then
> further distribute the modified code. If you're suggesting that people
> should be able to modify GPLed code (the quoted paragraph certainly
> makes it sound like you are) and release it under an alternative and
> more restricitive license, you're really missing the point quite badly.
> The authors of the GPLed code have granted you the right to modify it
> and redistribute it /providing you license the resulting code under the
> GPL/. Using GPLed code that is not owned by yourself in a non-GPLed and
> distributed product would be a clear violation of the license.
>
Thank you for a constructive reply.
If anything good has happened, it has brought to light the fact of looking
at licensing again for Smoothwall. The whole idea is to produce a product
that is totally free and totally GPL'd. This has been the case so far up to
v0.9.8.
Of course new code has been written for Smoothwall (from scratch) which two
authors would like to protect. How this is going to happen, is now up for
debate within the Smoothwall team. I'm sure that we will release 0.9.9
under GPL and that the Smoothwall team will work a way around this small
issue before Beta testing comes to an end.
> You're welcome to do whatever you want to do with your own code, of
> course. But in that case there's no problem with people having to have
> code removed from it, is there?
No, no problem with removing code that may reduce the functionality of the
free product. Still, that could be a good thing as this code could be moved
to the Corporate only version which would not be under a GPL license.
> SuSE have their administrative program licensed in such a way that it
> doesn't meet the DFSG. Adopting a similar license for Smoothwall would
> mean that it could no longer honestly be described as Free Software.
Yes, I have wondered how SUSE can charge for a product which may have unique
install and management code but contains a hell of a lot of GPL code too.
As you have said this version of Smoothwall would not be classed as free
software and would not be advertised on the website as such.
Regards
Nick.W
Richard Morrell
>
> Your debating style leaves something to be desired.
Matthew - I give thousands of man hours free to OpenSource projects oh
and also I've donated over 50 thousand pounds UK sterling to
OpenSource SmoothWall related stuff this year - your contribution was
what ??
Don't attack me - let Jason do it. Its like being savaged by a dead
sheep. It's also fun.
Richard Morrell
> posting style...)
>
I am defending my right to defend myself against Jason Clifford. I am
not attacking him - the guy might be a poster to this list. He's also
ineffective and rather an empty vessel
Richard Morrell
> On 14 Aug 2001, Richard Morrell wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> > and I'm particularly aggrieved as he works with the same company who've
> > been selling SmoothWall and not contributing back, even modifying it
> > calling it CheepLinux SmoothWall ....
>
Lance,
We actually actively stop people buying SmoothWall from you. Its
wholly deliberate there is reason to it. You published SmoothWall as
CheepLinux SmoothWall copyright to you. That was wrong and I
questioned your ethics.
Its amazing that you and Jason can't talk to me directly. It speaks
volumes for your ethics and your understanding of how people work.
We will deliberately put a disclaimer in 0.9.9 proper on the
installation page that says
"If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
you".
John Winters
Nick Woodruffe <ni...@pyrobrit.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
>Yes, I have wondered how SUSE can charge for a product which may have unique
>install and management code but contains a hell of a lot of GPL code too.
What are you wondering about? There's nothing surprising about charging
for GPL code - indeed, it's encouraged.
John
--
John Winters. Wallingford, Oxon, England.
The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux CDs in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/
lance
> lance <la...@uklinux.net> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.30.010815...@s1.uklinux.net>...
> > On 14 Aug 2001, Richard Morrell wrote:
> >
> > > <snip>
> > > and I'm particularly aggrieved as he works with the same company who've
> > > been selling SmoothWall and not contributing back, even modifying it
> > > calling it CheepLinux SmoothWall ....
> >
>
>
> Lance,
>
> We actually actively stop people buying SmoothWall from you. Its
> wholly deliberate there is reason to it. You published SmoothWall as
> CheepLinux SmoothWall copyright to you. That was wrong and I
> questioned your ethics.
Richard,
We have already adequately explained the small and simple mistake on our
website that was corrected.
You also know that neither myself nor Jason were aware of the mistake
until you pointed it out to us and it was corrected as soon as it
was possible to do so.
> Its amazing that you and Jason can't talk to me directly. It speaks
> volumes for your ethics and your understanding of how people work.
A public forum is I believe the correct place to air this matter, so that
people can see your attitude towards people who act reasonably towards
you and try to promote your products.
If you want to speak to us I know that you have both of our numbers.
> We will deliberately put a disclaimer in 0.9.9 proper on the
> installation page that says
>
> "If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
> you".
>
Thanks for the advertising.
Lance
Tim Haynes
> after all the crap you go on about the licence terms and conditions are
> you going to say any thing constructive about this
> product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as an
> alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
How about you say what the licensing terms on the software are going to be,
*then* we can consider whether we want to bother?
> Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
I did. I also agreed with Jason's pointing out of a lack of licensing.
> Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
> software for what it is.
Yes. Unlicensed, therefore not immediately compliant with the DFSG, for
example.
~Tim
--
Ideologies come, ideologies go |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
A waste of words, and endless flow |http://spodzone.org.uk/
Tim Haynes
> In article <868zgmd...@potato.vegetable.org.uk>, one of infinite
> monkeys at the keyboard of Tim Haynes <use...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk>
> hath written:
>
> (disclaimer: I reserve the right to retract when sober)
I recommend you do, especially the bit I put in parentheses afterwards. I
know there's *something* I meant there, so perhaps before you call it
> Rubbish.
including the whole article in your thoughts before responding would be an
idea.
~Tim
--
10:09:25 up 18 days, 11 min, 15 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.01
pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk |The sun is melting over the hills,
http://piglet.is.dreaming.org |All our roads are waiting / To be revealed
Tim Haynes
[snip]
> Its amazing that you and Jason can't talk to me directly. It speaks
> volumes for your ethics and your understanding of how people work.
>
> We will deliberately put a disclaimer in 0.9.9 proper on the
> installation page that says
>
> "If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
> you".
This attitude has cost you one potential customer.
*Plonk*.
~Tim
--
And in the rapture and the charm, |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
Came the tranquil and the calm, |http://spodzone.org.uk/
On the ridge of the mighty Atlantic. |
Matthew Garrett
Morrell wrote:
> Matthew - I give thousands of man hours free to OpenSource projects oh
> and also I've donated over 50 thousand pounds UK sterling to
> OpenSource SmoothWall related stuff this year - your contribution was
> what ??
My contribution to open source? Turning down a potentially lucrative
career in order to take a position as an underfunded student developing
GPLed software for the simulation of the dynamics of intracellular
protein networks and pathways with the long-term aim of producing a
sufficiently realistic model of a cell that animal testing can be
significantly reduced and drug development time cut, leading to the
savings of large numbers of lives. There's also the large amount of time
I've spent developing several systems for making Free software more
accessible to students here (such as the provision of a Linux service to
replace the Solaris service that was removed by college) and my
contributions to a service providing Linux access to every member of the
university who wants it.
I must apologise for not being able to match your spending on your
project. £50,000 is about 10 times as much as I've earned over my
entire life, and it's somewhat awkward to donate money when my entire
income goes on accomodation, food and the books that I need to do my
work.
> Don't attack me - let Jason do it. Its like being savaged by a dead
> sheep. It's also fun.
You've completely failed to address any of the legitimate points I've
made and have just admitted that you're doing this because it's fun. You
really do sound awfully like a troll.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-uk.co...@srcf.ucam.org
Paul Martin
Richard Morrell wrote:
> Don't attack me - let Jason do it. Its like being savaged by a dead
> sheep. It's also fun.
This summarises the entire thread. You don't like Jason. Fine. We know
that now.
--
Paul Martin <p...@zetnet.net>
Paul Martin
Richard Morrell wrote:
> "If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
> you".
Fine. Remember that this reflects badly on you too.
By the way, which should I use: exim or qmail?
--
Paul Martin <p...@zetnet.net>
Tim Haynes
> In article <ac60347e.01081...@posting.google.com>,
> Richard Morrell wrote:
>
> > "If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
> > you".
>
> Fine. Remember that this reflects badly on you too.
Thanks for being so high scored-up that I saw your followup...
I should've clarified that my plonk and now active block of smoothwall is
due to the attitude that refuses to answer questions directly but gives
rise to the above petty & unco-operative antagonism instead.
Nice when Free Software types all work together, isn't it...?
> By the way, which should I use: exim or qmail?
<nod>. I was thinking of exactly the same phenomenon myself. `Never mind
the license, just use the software'... I grew out of that a couple of years
ago when I last installed *windoze*. And that's leaving aside all questions
of authors' attitudes.
. o O ( Message-ID: <9ldb0r$ncq$1...@news.f.de.plusline.net>, maybe. )
~Tim
--
11:19:31 up 18 days, 1:21, 12 users, load average: 0.13, 0.06, 0.01
pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk |The candles of enlightenment
http://piglet.is.dreaming.org |Once lit, they say, don't burn
Nick Woodruffe
news:9ldbaa$bfe$1...@polo.demon.co.uk...
>
> What are you wondering about? There's nothing surprising about charging
> for GPL code - indeed, it's encouraged.
>
John,
In which case my view of the GPL is not correct. I can no longer comment
here.
regards
Nick.W
Wine Development
>
> "Nix" <$}xinix{$@esperi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:87ae12z...@loki.wkstn.nix...
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > FWIW Jason is a well-respected regular on this newsgroup and has given
> > up substantial amounts of his own time and money for the community;
> > hence, the onus is on *you* (as, I believe, a newcomer to this group) to
> > prove yourself qualified to attack Jason in this manner.
> >
> > (In your favour you have SmoothWall. In your disfavour you have your
> > posting style...)
>
> Since Richard has sweat blood, tears and several chequebooks into
> SmoothWall, I feel that to compare that point with whatever Jason has
> done/spent is moot. As for posting style, it's no more bitchy than anything
> else on Usenet.
But it is much more bitchy than is used by the usual inhabitants of
this
ng, as has been commented on by several people in the past.
I was also under the impression that netiquette required mis-spellings
and bad punctuation to be ignored unless they seriously impair
comprehension.
I second the remarks made by another poster about ignoring Smoothwall
from
now on.
--
Keith Matthews Spam trap - my real account at this
node is keith_m
Frequentous Consultants - Linux Services,
Oracle development & database administration
Phil Britton
> > > Well done :) Kudos - Hope you feel big now.
> >
> > Your debating style leaves something to be desired.
>
> Matthew - I give thousands of man hours free to OpenSource projects oh
> and also I've donated over 50 thousand pounds UK sterling to
> OpenSource SmoothWall related stuff this year - your contribution was
> what ??
>
Well my contribution was exactly fuck-all but then I don't use
Smoothwall and probably won't now. Also I didn't realise there was an
entrance fee for the OpenSource club. But that doesn't stop me saying
that it looks to me, whatever personal problems you have with uklinux,
CheepLinux, Definite Linux or Jason, that you're behaving like a twat.
Please note that I didn't sya that you are a twat, just that you're
behaving like one
cheers
Phil
Matthew Garrett
Woodruffe wrote:
> John Winters <jo...@polo.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:9ldbaa$bfe$1...@polo.demon.co.uk...
>> What are you wondering about? There's nothing surprising about charging
>> for GPL code - indeed, it's encouraged.
> here.
It's probably worth reading http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html .
For any software to be Free under GNU's definition (and the DFSG), it
must be possible to sell it for a profit. The Freeness comes from the
fact that anyone who buys it has the freedom to do whatever they want
with the resulting product, including selling it for a profit
themselves.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-uk.co...@srcf.ucam.org
Simon J. Rowe
Tim Haynes <use...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk> writes:
> This attitude has cost you one potential customer.
Make that two. If you want to be an egotistical bigot then move to
Commercial Software, you'll find plenty of company there. We don't
need it here,
Simon
Jason Clifford
> that's a bit unfair ... we see a hell of a lot of people on the mailing
> lists and on IRC, and since Richard has brought attention to this thread
> (rather fairly IMHO), there will be those arriving here for the first time
> with the intention of defending SmoothWall. Simply fobbing these
> wellwishers off with "oh they must be someone multiposting from obtained
> dialups" is a bit unfair.
Indeed this is a public forum so everyone has the same right to post their
contributions. I welcome it and am very happy to see new posters to this
newsgroup.
I do wonder at your claim that they will be defending Smoothwall.
Defending it from what exactly?
Are you claiming that there is something in my email or my postings to
this thread that needs defending?
Why not simply ask among yourselves at the Smoothwall community why
Lawrence is unwilling to disclose the license under which he is
distributing the new installer.
Be absolutely certain that I am not questioning his right to do so. Look
over the history of my postings to this newsgroup and you will find I have
always been a strong voice in favour or an authors absolute right to
determine the license he choses for his work.
If Lawrence wants to license the installer under a restrictive license
that is incompatible with the GPL I am happy for him to do so and I hope
that it leads to the success he and the other developers hope will result.
It is appropriate however for me, having downloaded the beta release
containing the new software, to require a copy of the license refered to
but not included or pubished anywhere that I was able to find.
> And although I spamblock my posting name and address, my vanilla RL name is
> in my sig. I have no intention, as I'm sure no-one else in the dev team
> has, in flooding the ng with anonymous fake messages. If anyone does this
> at all, it is undoubtedly without the blessing of anyone involved in
> SmoothWall.
I agree. There is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Smoothwall team
members engage in this kind of dishonest activity.
Even Richard Morrell is happy for everyone to see his abuse as coming from
him.
> > And in spite of all the abuse, none of them has been able to explain why
> > portions of "SmoothWall GPL" were not actually GPL.
>
> As I'm about to explain in another post, there were other issues at work
> when Lawrence and Dan decided that the GPL may be insufficient to protect
> their work from commercial concerns. There is a difference between "unable
> to explain" and "haven't explained yet".
That fine and probably entirely appropriate however if you are refering to
the CaveOnet issues I wonder whether good legal advise has been sought as
if the contracts of employment Richard and Lawrence have indicate a risk
to ownership of the product then altering the license will not help a bit.
As for "haven't explained yet" why wont someone take this opportunity to
do so - or at least to disclose the license?
Jason Clifford
Jason Clifford
> > I've thought about doing so. It would be rather a lot of work as I would
> > want to fix the management scripts etc as well.
> >
>
> Well what's stopping you then Jason? You seem more intent on knocking a
> BETA product because the GPL License does not read correctly than giving
> something back.
Perhaps you should read my postings again. I have not attacked the
Smoothwall Beta product. I have simply asked a question about the new
licensing arrangements and pointed this out to the community as should
people distribute it under the illusion that the GPL applies they may be
committing copyright infringement offenses.
This is particuarly important to anyone who is commercially distributing
the beta release of 0.9.9 of "Smoothwall GPL" as commercial infringement
is a criminal offence.
This is why it is *very* important that Lawrence disclose the license
asap.
> Having read your email to Lawrence and Richard, you could have saved all
> your wittering on by just saying "Hey guys, maybe you should make a separate
> license file for you own code cause some people may get a bit arsey if you
> tag lines on the top of GPL v2".
Maybe so however the product had already been released and the above
sentence would not have been sufficiently correct in relaying my intention
to both point out the error and ask what the actual license is.
> You can be assured the License will now read correctly before the final
> release date of 25th August 2001. It will be a shame that people who have
> written personal/private code for the Smoothwall project may have to remove
> it from the free version of Smoothwall just to comply with your GPL
> idealistic bent!
I have no "GPL idealistic bent". I suggest that before you post such
declaritive statements about me you research the facts. I have long
supported the rights of authors to choose restrictive licenses as is only
right.
I do however insist that if you distribute something under terms you claim
to be either GPL or compatible with GPL that you actually do so rather
than deceiving me and others.
After all I reasonably assume that I can redistribute both privately and
commercially and this could lead to criminal infringement of copyright on
my part. The current penalty for such is 2 years in prison plus a hefty
fine.
> Time to look at the way SUSE license their code. Maybe they have the
> right idea!
Indeed. SuSE do not claim to distribute a GPL distribution. They've
always been clear on that and they have not violated the GPL as a result.
They may not have been popular with everyone as a result however they have
been fair, open and have not deceived - even by omission.
Jason Clifford
Jason Clifford
> you're extremely vocal tonight. Your spelling is really good too. You
> must have the spellchecker turned on.
Richard, you appear to have trouble determining the time of day. For the
sake of clarity in this discussion I was nowhere near a computer after
16:40 hrs yesterday.
Also I don't run a spellchecker. Thanks for your concern though.
> Right.... SmoothWall is GPL - SmoothWall is free - unless you choose
> to buy it from a GPL reseller (only www.linuxemporium.com is
> recommended) and we have NEVER made a penny from SmoothWall nor is it
> our intention.
This is simply not true.
Up to 0.9.8 Smoothwall GPL certainly was GPL'd Free software. As of the
beta release of 0.9.9 this is plainly not true.
The beta release of 0.9.9 includes wording in the GPL COPYING document
that negates it for both the installer and the ADSL management utilities
as well as unspecified "Portions of SmoothWall" and asserts that these are
"licenced under modified licences which are available on application" yet
when I applied for these modified licenses I have been refused them and
subject to defamatory abuse from you both in personal emails and in public
forums.
The only details of these new terms disclosed are:
"No modifications to either the installation libraries or
binaries and re-distribution of modified binaries based on the installer
is permitted without the owners permission. The owners of this code are
Lawrence Manning (lawr...@smoothwall.org) and Daniel Goscomb
(da...@smoothwall.org)."
Plainly such terms are incompatible with the GPL so the beta release of
0.9.9 is *not* GPL'd software and is not Free Software. As the source is
also unavailable even the most forgiving interpretation of "Open Source"
is not applicable.
> You are brave to attack me in a forum. Why not pick up the phone call
> me in my office - I'm easy to find or is that too hard for you ?
Brave? Do you mean in view of the fact that I know you are an abusive
person? As for attacking you I challenge you to point to one instance of a
personal attack upon you in any posting by me to a forum yesterday.
You cannot do so.
As for phoning you, why should I wish to have any contact with *you*. You
are not the copyright holder of the code in question. I contacted Lawrence
via email. That is the standard convention in the Open Source community
and indeed is the only means of contact detailed in the COPYING document
for him.
As you are so fond of the phone I pose the same question to you. If you
have issue with what I have stated why did you not phone me directly? You
are the one who seems to favour that means of communication.
> SmoothWall has made a tremendous difference to peoples ways of working
> in charities, schools, colleges, housing associations worldwide. We
> have literally thousands of case studies and thank you emails from
> people.
That's nice. How is it relevant to the licensing issues under discussion
or your abuse?
> You represent the dross end of the Linux marketplace where a soapbox
> is needed to stand on to attack people who give up their time free to
> work on community projects.
"dross end of the Linux marketplace"? That's pathetic Richard. Then again
I get the impression from reading your abuse both to me and to those on
your users mailing list that pathetic is a description thats appropriate
to you.
> Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
> advert for OpenSource and what a cool thing for all those people
> working in the community to do. Instead you just made yourself look
> like a prat dude.
Because as of the latest public release (0.9.9 beta release) Smoothwall is
no longer an Open Source project.
As for "all those people working in the community" I find that an odd
assertion as Smoothwall adopts a closed development model.
As for more personal insults I fear that only serves to demean your own
public image Richard.
> Well done :) Kudos - Hope you feel big now.
I personally hope that the Smoothwall development team will either
continue with the GPL or a compatible license or will have the simple
honesty to state openly what the new license is.
Jason Clifford
Jason Clifford
> > > Well done :) Kudos - Hope you feel big now.
> >
> > Your debating style leaves something to be desired.
>
> Matthew - I give thousands of man hours free to OpenSource projects oh
> and also I've donated over 50 thousand pounds UK sterling to
> OpenSource SmoothWall related stuff this year - your contribution was
> what ??
Your contributions mean little in the context of this discussion Richard.
I've also spent several years of my time and tens of thousands of pounds
of my own money on Open Source projects including Definite Linux and
UKLINUX NET. It's no big deal. I am not rich - indeed I ended up in
serious debt as a result - so doing so was not easy.
That really means nothing however as ultimately it gives no greater
benefit to the Open Source community than a student who GPLs his thesis
work - indeed such have often proved of vital importance to common
infrastructure.
Having made an active contribution is not the entry bar to the Open Source
community Richard. The entry bar is simple being interested. That's it. An
interest is all that is required in order to qualify someone to express an
opinion.
> Don't attack me - let Jason do it. Its like being savaged by a dead
> sheep. It's also fun.
Yawn.
Jason
Jason Clifford
> I'll vouch for this, I've used 0.9.8 in five voluntary sector community
> centres to good effect.
OK, I want to go on record here.
I encourage people to use Smoothwall where it is appropriate. My initial
reaction to it is that it seems to be a good product.
If you need a simply firewall seriously consider Smoothwall. The
development team have done a fairly good job.
> I must be missing some history here! Seems to me that the original post was
> trying to clarify whether 0.9.9 was released under the GPL - no? I don't
> think Jason was attacking you Richard - relax!
I was not although I have responded to some of his attacks now.
Jason
Jason Clifford
> > I must be missing some history here! Seems to me that the original post
> was
> > trying to clarify whether 0.9.9 was released under the GPL - no? I don't
> > think Jason was attacking you Richard - relax!
>
> why else would Jason post in a rather public forum instead of asking Richard
> or any other member of the development team wrt any licensing issues?
William, the answer to that is simple.
Licensing issues with popular software are an important community concern.
Moreover the restrictive licensing implied in the COPYING file distributed
in the beta release of 0.9.9 may actually mean that anyone who is
commercially distributing it is committing a criminal offence. I know of
at least one other person who is already doing so.
Further more Smoothwall has a history of being heavily promoted on the
merits of being Free Software. Changing the license without making it very
clear that the Free Software aspects are being dropped or severely
dilluted is something that the community has a right to know about.
I have a question for you William. As a member of the Smoothwall team do
you agree that Smoothwall should refuse to disclose the license for vital
software within the distribution?
Jason
Jason Clifford
> Since Richard has sweat blood, tears and several chequebooks into
> SmoothWall, I feel that to compare that point with whatever Jason has
> done/spent is moot.
Indeed. I'd probably win such a pissing contest. It's not the point
however as being able to poor money and work into something in no makes
you right in anything.
> As for posting style, it's no more bitchy than anything
> else on Usenet. Granted Richard has not gone for the purely diplomatic
> option, but it's still better than swearing and insults, which usually
> result in <plonks>.
Do I really need to post the specifics of the abuse from Richard's emails
to me? I've refrained from doing so as it could only cause Richard serious
embarassment here - something he seems happy to do to himself on your
mailing lists I note.
> If you knew anything about the background of SmoothWall, and certain recent
> events, you would understand why some of the developers have taken the tone
> they have with their submitted code. This is not about keeping code from
> the sweaty throbbing masses, but about ensuring that certain corporate
> elements cannot keep the freedom of use away from SmoothWall.
I cannot help but wonder if the threat from certain corporate elements,
which one can only take to mean CaveOnet who are Richards employers and
who supposedly sought to sieze the trademark on Smoothwall, is so great
why Richard and Lawrence have not simple resigned from their positions as
directors of that company and moved elsewhere.
They certainly both have sufficient skills and profile to be able to do
so.
> In my opinion, if that means that two parts of the rather large whole cannot
> be redistributed without explicit permission of the original authors, then
> so be it. If peoples concerns are that it _appears_ that the entire package
> is GPLed without exception, then we can always slap rather large 36pt red
> letters on the download pages stating that two components of the package are
> not GPLed for whatever reason, and provide the alternate licence text.
This is the key issue however. Even when politely asked for the license I
was refused absolutely.
Jason
Jason Clifford
> I am defending my right to defend myself against Jason Clifford. I am
> not attacking him - the guy might be a poster to this list. He's also
> ineffective and rather an empty vessel
You claim not to be attacking me yet your own previous postings prove that
to be a false statement.
> > How terribly, terribly ironic...
I can only assert that this is once again appropriate to your posting.
Jason Clifford
David Damerell
>>for GPL code - indeed, it's encouraged.
>here.
"Shock on u.c.o.l. as person waffles about GPL without actually having
read it."
We get about one a fortnight, I should say.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
David Damerell
>Right.... SmoothWall is GPL -
Up until, but not including, the current version.
>work on community projects. Why not say ... SmoothWall thats a great
>advert for OpenSource
Because, as of the current version, it is not.
Jason Clifford
> Dear lovable Jason...
Thanks, I feel all cuddly now!
> after all the crap you go on about the licence terms and conditions are
> you going to say any thing constructive about this
> product/utility/software? How about the fact that its worth trying as
> an alternative to any firewall product on/in any marketplace.
>
> Did you notice THE BIG LETTERS saying BETA, This means NOT FINAL.
That that is relevant exactly why?
It has been published. I visited the web site and was invited to download
it - and that very same web site gave me the strong impression that I
could exercise the usual GPL rights over it. It was only my own reading
the COPYING file - something many people do not do as a matter of course -
that led to my discovering the issue.
> Anyone with the meanest of intelligence would realise this release of
> software for what it is.
Yes, a published piece of software for which the authors still refuse to
disclose the license with which they seek to control my activities in
relation to alteration and redistribution.
I have already stated in this thread today that I feel that 0.9.8 is a
fairly good product on the face of it. I've recommended that people
wanting a firewall consider it.
Jason Clifford
Jason Clifford
> "marketed" ... lol ... That implies that we "sell" SmoothWall, which isn't
> the case.
No, there is no financial implication or requirement attached to the term
marketing.
> The only people who "sell" SmoothWall in any form at present are free/cheap
> Linux resellers such as Sheep^WCheepLinux and John Winters at the emporium
Deliberately mis-spelling CheepLinux. That's impressive.
> "substantial" ... like the UI, the VPN integration, the snort rules and
> logs, the squid integration, ipchains/ipfw rule management, DMZ management,
> dynamic DNS support, DHCPd control/management, PPP and modem profile
> management, graphing support, et cetera ... all those are just tiny wee
> ickle bits of function compared to the installer and the Alcatel Speed Touch
> Home management and driver interface ... <dr.evil> riiiiiiiight </dr.evil>
Substantial as in the installer without which the rest is a useless
collection of electronic noise as it's inaccessable.
> I think given the level of features that SmoothWall has, and how much of
> that could be reused elsewhere under the GPL, stating that "substantial"
> parts of the distribution are not GPL is fallacious and is an attempt to
> incite the very thread that has emerged here. There are less tabloid ways
> of drawing attention to such issues.
As the installer is absolutely vital is certain is a substantial element -
a fact you could speak to SuSE about. They've dealt with it in a
responsible manner.
Stating that my assertions are "fallacious" is clearly rediculous. I
suggest that you review your position.
I certainly have attempted to "incite the very thread that has emerged
here". I raised the issue as it is important to the Open Source community.
There is nothing tabloid about this issue except for the fantastic claims
you are making and the abuse Richard enjoys hurling.
> "Promotional literature" implies a commercial release (which it isn't), and
> at any rate, the website (which is what I assume you are referring to) is
> still geared towards 0.9.8, as I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread. If
> it is ever deemed that SmoothWall GPL is no longer an appropriate title, you
> can be sure that the website will be updated to reflect this.
No. Promotional literature means exactly what is states. Literature
designed to promote something. There is no commercial requirement however
I do wish to address the repeated claim being made by apologists for the
Smoothwall stance on this issue.
Richard Morrell and others have repeated stated the intention to produce a
commercial Smoothwall product.
It stands to reason then, and is consistent with all modern marketing
principles, that the promotion of the Smoothwall image and the positive
marketing enjoyed from the GPL version is intended to benefit the later
commercial release from which profit must certainly be intended to be
made.
Personally I consider that a reasonable development. All of those who
produce Smoothwall are entitled to find ways to earn a living from doing
so - it would be incredibly foolish not to do so.
It is clear however that the claims that no commercial benefit is derived
from Smoothwall is not completely true. That benefit need not be
immediate in time to exist. It is well recognised that developing brand
awareness and positive image is a direct commercial benefit regardless of
actual monetary issues.
Jason Clifford
pip
>
> FYI
>
> Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 18:01:00 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Richard Morrell <ric...@smoothwall.org>
> To: us...@lists.smoothwall.org
> Subject: [users] A comment that SmoothWall isn't GPL -
>
> SmoothWall Users
> ----------------
>
> Lawrence is getting hassled by a guy in UK who once had a small distro
> called Definite Linux - long since departed from shelves around the UK,
> and I'm particularly aggrieved as he works with the same company who've
> been selling SmoothWall and not contributing back, even modifying it
> calling it CheepLinux SmoothWall ....
>
>
> We have NOTHING to hide here and its amazing how much people in the Linux
> Industry can sometimes be their own worst enemies. I'd advise everyone to
> read his mail - he loves the sound of his own voice so I reckon another
> few thousand people reading it would be cool.
>
> We would never ever ever hide any hassle like this from any of our users
> so we'd rather you take a stance now.
Well, call me stupid, but Jason's email was a polite inquiry! Touchy
aren't they ?
pip
> Richard Morrell
> Founder and FUNDER - SmoothWall
You are doing your best to look very bad in public Richard. Jason was
just asking a polite and reasonable question. Your response tells a lot.
pip
>
> neuro wrote:
> >
> > "Nix" <$}xinix{$@esperi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:87ae12z...@loki.wkstn.nix...
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > FWIW Jason is a well-respected regular on this newsgroup and has given
> > > up substantial amounts of his own time and money for the community;
> > > hence, the onus is on *you* (as, I believe, a newcomer to this group) to
> > > prove yourself qualified to attack Jason in this manner.
> > >
> > > (In your favour you have SmoothWall. In your disfavour you have your
> > > posting style...)
> >
> > Since Richard has sweat blood, tears and several chequebooks into
> > SmoothWall, I feel that to compare that point with whatever Jason has
> > done/spent is moot. As for posting style, it's no more bitchy than anything
> > else on Usenet.
>
> But it is much more bitchy than is used by the usual inhabitants of
> this
> ng, as has been commented on by several people in the past.
More bitchy? More like a character assassination for no apparent good
reason! uk.comp.linux is a nice place to be most of the time.
pip
Jason Clifford wrote:
>
> On 15 Aug 2001, Richard Morrell wrote:
>
> > I am defending my right to defend myself against Jason Clifford. I am
> > not attacking him - the guy might be a poster to this list. He's also
> > ineffective and rather an empty vessel
>
> You claim not to be attacking me yet your own previous postings prove that
> to be a false statement.
I think if you took any reasonable person it would be quite apparent
that you are being attacked for no good reason. This guy obviously has
some issues.
pip
> A public forum is I believe the correct place to air this matter, so that
> people can see your attitude towards people who act reasonably towards
> you and try to promote your products.
This thread has been indeed enlightening. Not for the better :(
John Ineson
> "Nix" <$}xinix{$@esperi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:87ae12z...@loki.wkstn.nix...
>> posting style...)
>
> Since Richard has sweat blood, tears and several chequebooks into
> SmoothWall,
...and does not hesitate to remind us of the great sacrifices he has
made, and apparently expects respect and adulation in return.
Well I've got news for him - this ain't a pissing contest.
There are thousands of people out there writing good code, helping
others, and having fun. That is what the free software community is
about.
Richard can give up all his money, and work himself to death - it won't
make the slightest difference. You don't get respect unless you give it,
and AFAICS he treats people like shit.
--
John Ineson
"10:42 - Big Brother plays crowd noise to disguise the sound of the live
audience". Uhhhh huh.
Daniel Barron
> In article <86g0at8...@potato.vegetable.org.uk>,
> Tim Haynes <use...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk> writes:
> > This attitude has cost you one potential customer.
>
> Make that two.
[snip]
Avoiding smoothwall just because you don't like one guy in the development
team would be a really silly move. IMHO smoothwall is absolutely fantastic
and I don't care what the license is for 0.9.9 as I would even gladly buy
it! (if it were for sale other than for download). 0.9.9 is easily the best
firewall product I've ever seen.
Don't cut your ide cable to spite your monitor!
--
Daniel Barron - use [at jadeb.com] for personal replys.
(Visit http://dansguardian.org/ - True web content filtering for all)
neuro
news:Pine.LNX.4.30.010815...@s1.uklinux.net...
>
> [snip]
>
> I have a question for you William. As a member of the Smoothwall team do
> you agree that Smoothwall should refuse to disclose the license for vital
> software within the distribution?
As a member of the SmoothWall dev team, I feel that it is up to the owner of
the software under any other issued license to make their own choice to
disclose or refuse disclosure of any material relating to or describing the
license, and not SmoothWall "itself" ... although I'm not completely sure
what you are illustrating by referring to SmoothWall as an entity beyond the
downloadable distro ...
Personally I would not restrict my code under any license other than GPL or
some variant thereof, but I have not been in the same situation as Lawrence
and Dan, and thus cannot comment from a similar point of view.
Completely different situation, but similar query. Someone you know is
critically ill, and has not long to live, and refuses to give up organs for
donor harvest which could save someone in the next bed. Do you agree with
their refusal?
This kind of things comes down to conscience, values, and respect. If
someone wants to restrict the usage of their work by whatever license, for
whatever reason, then that is their decision.
--
_ __ ___ _ _ _ __ ___ @well.com William Anderson www.well.com/~neuro
| '_ \ / _ \ | | | '__/ _ \ "The thing I love most about deadlines is the
| | | | __/ |_| | | | (_) | wonderful WHOOSHing sound they make as they
|_| |_|\___|\__,_|_| \___/ go past." - Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
James Suttie
>
>Well, Jason's email sounded perfectly reasonable to me. It seems the
>people behind Smoothwall have a really bad attitude.
>
I'm with you on this one Keith, Jason's email _was_ reasonable, why not just
answer the question Richard rather than launching into one?
As I stated earlier, I think 0.9.8 is a good `product', if you want to
release a commercial version that's fine too just don't pretend you aren't.
James Suttie
>
>I am defending my right to defend myself against Jason Clifford. I am
>not attacking him - the guy might be a poster to this list. He's also
>ineffective and rather an empty vessel
>
penny from it)... You really are making yourself look very foolish, stop
having a go at Jason or answer the original points or stop posting.
Richie Jarvis
I can't believe what is happening here - is this REALLY what you all
want? I just installed Smoothwall the first time the other day, and
joined the mailing list (boy, what a mistake that was!) and suddenly
there are people ranting and raving about whether software is free, or
isn't free or what the hell is it???
Ok, my point is this - Smoothwall guys and Cheeplinux guys - why not
have a civilised conversation outside of public mailing
lists/forums/etc? Do it via email if you need to keep tempers under
control, but for christs sake, don't do it in the open. An argument
of this variety is doing nothing more than hurting the thing you both
work on - Linux and the Open Source way of life.
Thank you for listening,
Richie Jarvis
David Tillotson
Morrell <ric...@linux.com> writes
>We actually actively stop people buying SmoothWall from you. Its
>wholly deliberate there is reason to it. You published SmoothWall as
>CheepLinux SmoothWall copyright to you. That was wrong and I
>questioned your ethics.
I note that you snipped the comments from Lance - I wonder why?
I hope that you can get over your current bout of stress, and get back
to developing what is so far an excellent product. I only hope that if
you ever do get round to the apparently planned commercial release, you
have the foresight to distance yourself from your comments made in this
NG. If not, I can personally vouch for the loss of ~120 Smoothwall
Commercial licenses. If you wish to discuss this further, feel free.
BTW I was seriously considering dropping the current install of 0.9.8,
and returning to my own hand-crufted system, which requires not
inconsiderable TLC while I get to grips with it all. I have decided to
stick with it, but certainly will not pay for Smoothwall in its current
state (you expect me to accept software [even beta] that is distributed
under an unknown license? Who are you, the bastard child of Gates &
Ballmer? Show me the license, that's all I ask!)
--
David Tillotson
david at acmelabs dot demon dot co dot uk
James Suttie
Keith Willoughby
Clearer that these aren't people I would want to do business with. To
post the crap on that page not only shows a bad attitude, but a pretty
poor level of professionalism.
I simply cannot see how an enquiry about licensing could be construed
as an "attack". Fuckwits.
--
Keith Willoughby | Fire Jimy
This isn't TV, he isn't William Shatner
Andrew McGregor
No. I want to read about the implications of software that may or may
not concern me directly as an end user. As an end user and developer of
other open source projects definately concerns me indirectly.
I may have installed the 0.9.9 and wrongly *assumed* it was 100% GPL as
previous versions were. Of course one should always *read* the licence
and other associated files prior to installation, but in reality most of
us don't bother for GPL's products.
I believe Jason asked an important question and only intention was to
gain clarity.
--
Andrew McGregor
Dave Pearson
> Avoiding smoothwall just because you don't like one guy in the development
> team would be a really silly move.
They appear to be avoiding smoothwall because they might suffer prejudice at
the hands of the smoothwall community as a whole depending on where they
decide to source this supposedly free software. Isn't that the intention of
the comment Richard said he'd place on the smoothwall web site?
--
Dave Pearson: | lbdb.el - LBDB interface.
http://www.davep.org/ | sawfish.el - Sawfish mode.
Emacs: | uptimes.el - Record emacs uptimes.
http://www.davep.org/emacs/ | quickurl.el - Recall lists of URLs.
Chris Jones
ric...@linux.com (Richard Morrell) wrote in message news:<ac60347e.01081...@posting.google.com>...
> Matthew - I give thousands of man hours free to OpenSource projects oh
> and also I've donated over 50 thousand pounds UK sterling to
> OpenSource SmoothWall related stuff this year - your contribution was
> what ??
Richard, do you not feel it's a little presumtuous and arrogant to so
blithely assume that your contributions are somehow more worthy to
'the cause' than those of others? Even if you have contributed more,
does that somehow give you more right to an opinion than others?
--
Chris "Ng" Jones
ch...@black-sun.co.uk
www.linuxdude.co.uk
01111010111111
MJ Ray
> As a member of the SmoothWall dev team, I feel that it is up to the owner of
> the software under any other issued license to make their own choice to
> disclose or refuse disclosure of any material relating to or describing the
> license, and not SmoothWall "itself" ...
This is a bizarre position given that you seem to indicate later that
you prefer the GPL. By not disclosing the licence, they are
explicitly contradicting the description of SmoothWall as GPL. From
where I'm standing, it is up to the SmoothWall team to enforce
disclosure so that they can amend their promotional material.
> although I'm not completely sure what you are illustrating by
> referring to SmoothWall as an entity beyond the downloadable distro
> ...
Software takes on a life of its own, you know...
--
MJR
Member of the Anglian Linux User Group, UK
Meets every month or so and OPN #alug on Mondays at 2000 UK
http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/
MJ Ray
> > And in spite of all the abuse, none of them has been able to explain why
> > portions of "SmoothWall GPL" were not actually GPL.
> >
> > Funny that.
>
> As I'm about to explain in another post, there were other issues at work
> when Lawrence and Dan decided that the GPL may be insufficient to protect
> their work from commercial concerns. There is a difference between "unable
> to explain" and "haven't explained yet".
You seem to be having a problem with tenses in English. If this is
not your native language, I apologise, but what is actually said above
is "none of them has been able", not that they are "unable". At this
point in time (and I'm still reading through), that is true.
As to concerns about the GPL being "insufficient", I find this
somewhat remarkable. Has the smoothwall team approached anyone at the
Free Software Foundation about their concerns, so that they can be
resolved? ISTR reading that Richard saying he counts some FSF Europe
people as friends. Allowing them to answer GPL concerns rather than
backing away and spreading FUD about one of the major licences would
be much fairer.
MJ Ray
> Avoiding smoothwall just because you don't like one guy in the development
> team would be a really silly move. IMHO smoothwall is absolutely fantastic
> and I don't care what the license is for 0.9.9 as I would even gladly buy
> it! (if it were for sale other than for download). 0.9.9 is easily the best
> firewall product I've ever seen.
This isn't just a personality issue. I'm fairly sure that Tim is a
debian user, so you can probably guess that he values his freedoms,
which is the very thing that 0.9.9 appears to be abusing by with
marketing as "GPL" while critical parts are not under that licence.
At least, you could guess that if you hadn't just arrived here with
the last link you followed.
Freedom of software upon which we depend is important to some of us
and we *do* care about the licence. (For why you should care, try
starting at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ or http://www.gnu.org/ )
At this point in the thread, the licence of the restricted parts
hasn't been stated, so we must assume the worst.
MJ Ray
> Ok, my point is this - Smoothwall guys and Cheeplinux guys - why not
> have a civilised conversation outside of public mailing
> lists/forums/etc? Do it via email if you need to keep tempers under
> control, but for christs sake, don't do it in the open. An argument
> of this variety is doing nothing more than hurting the thing you both
> work on - Linux and the Open Source way of life.
I don't think there's any other thing connecting us together besides
this public forum. We could set one up, but the odds of it working in
time are minimal. Do you really think people will join a mailing list
just for a discussion like this?
But I don't think you should be too concerned. Disagreements like
this seem to happen in most large projects, whether internal to one
company, between many companies, between companies and customers or
whatever. You need to accept that. Because Linux-related projects
are generally done in the open, these discussions will happen in the
open. When the dust clears, we should come out ahead for the simple
reason of the Delphi effect if nothing else.
How exactly do you think this is hurting us? No-one is issuing press
releases about this discussion (and I sincerely hope that they won't)
and if the media picks up this disagreement, it will be a whole lot
less damaging than if it was going on in private, some reporter gets
an exclusive and people wonder why we tried to cover it up. No, we
should hold our heads up high that we're confident enough to talk
about our differences in public.
These things do need to be sorted out in one way or other. We must
not let it hide the fact that we do agree on a number of things and
can work together on those, though.
MJ Ray
Much clearer. "The GPL has its flaws". Maybe they'd like to take
these flaws up with FSF, rather than FUDding for England.
Dave Reader
>> I see it's on the website now...
>> http://www.smoothwall.org/gpl/news
>> much clearer!
> Clearer that these aren't people I would want to do business with. To
> post the crap on that page not only shows a bad attitude, but a pretty
> poor level of professionalism.
> I simply cannot see how an enquiry about licensing could be construed
> as an "attack". Fuckwits.
Given that the software was distributed with a text file which explicitly
stated that parts of smoothwall are/were *not* GPL, it appears that
Richard now openly lies: "SmoothWall is GPL, always has been GPL.
SmoothWall is distributed under the GPL and is licenced wholly under the
GPL"
Interesting also that Richard does not appear to have commented on the
apparently unauthorised modification of the GPL "COPYING" file (or did i
miss it somewhere?).
Of course, google has the record which should satisfy any open minded
reader that the person being "attacked" in all of this is Jason, and that
apparently Richard is the one out to "attack" someone.
http://groups.google.com/groups?safe=off&th=c2a4dd38dc11b23d,81&start=0
lovely.
all IMHO etc etc yadayada fruitcake.
d.
Chris Jones
"prich" <la...@securitywriters.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.30.01081...@s1.uklinux.net...
> Linux retailer CheepLinux and that they are NOT an authorised reseller of
Of course the amusing thing about that is that (by way of the GPL) you are
an authorised reseller, as is anyone else who abides by the license terms.
You might not be a preferred reseller, but that's a whole different kettle
of fisk.
--
Chris Jones
Tony Houghton
MJ Ray <markj+uk.co...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Daniel Barron <dan...@DeleteMeAndInvalidForNoSpam.jadeb.com.invalid> writes:
>
>> Avoiding smoothwall just because you don't like one guy in the development
>> team would be a really silly move. IMHO smoothwall is absolutely fantastic
>> and I don't care what the license is for 0.9.9 as I would even gladly buy
>> it! (if it were for sale other than for download). 0.9.9 is easily the best
>> firewall product I've ever seen.
>
> This isn't just a personality issue. I'm fairly sure that Tim is a
> debian user, so you can probably guess that he values his freedoms,
> which is the very thing that 0.9.9 appears to be abusing by with
> marketing as "GPL" while critical parts are not under that licence.
> At least, you could guess that if you hadn't just arrived here with
> the last link you followed.
Plus there's the factor that you can't be confident that the developers
might refuse to support you in future because they've fallen out with
the distributor you sourced it from.
--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk
Tim Haynes
[snip]
> > This isn't just a personality issue. I'm fairly sure that Tim is a
> > debian user, so you can probably guess that he values his freedoms,
> > which is the very thing that 0.9.9 appears to be abusing by with
> > marketing as "GPL" while critical parts are not under that licence.
Tim is indeed a Debian user. Tim runs a clean establishment, insisting on
knowing what he's allowed to do with software before considering it for
installation. More to the point, Tim runs more architectures than just
Intel/clones and therefore needs sources for packages.
Tim's /etc/apt/sources.list has not contained `non-free' for over 18 months
and is not expected to do so again any time in the near future.
> > At least, you could guess that if you hadn't just arrived here with the
> > last link you followed.
>
> Plus there's the factor that you can't be confident that the developers
> might refuse to support you in future because they've fallen out with the
> distributor you sourced it from.
Indeed. Licensing is one of several factors; I tend to ask myself `do I
want to be seen using, supporting, or advocating this project and any
related folks?'.
~Tim
--
17:49:01 up 19 days, 7:50, 13 users, load average: 0.06, 0.02, 0.00
pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk |We stood in the moonlight
http://piglet.is.dreaming.org |and the river flowed
Chris Jones
"Richard Morrell" <ric...@linux.com> wrote in message
news:ac60347e.01081...@posting.google.com...
> "If this product has been bought from CheepLinux we will not support
> you".
So then all people have to do is tell you that they downloaded it or bought
it from somewhere else and then you'll support them. Not exactly the best
thought out plan ever, is it ;)
--
Chris Jones
Chris Bartram
mailing list like shit. I've made a few lame postings to them, with no
problem. Any questions have been answered (quickly) by a list member (oftem
Richard) The smoothwall mailing lists are helpful and informative. Richard
may voice his opinions 'enthusiastically' but the way I see it
a) He's provided me with a brilliant piece of software
b) Why shouldn't he say what he wants on then list?
c) If you don't like the way it's done, simple. Don't use it. There are
other solutions. It's just smoothwall is the best. If you must bicker about
GPL, vote with your feet, but I won't be joining you.
"Tony Evans" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:3b7924cc$1...@hoth.darkstorm.local...
> In uk.comp.os.linux, Jason Clifford <ja...@uklinux.net> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote:
> >
> >> In legal terms amending the document is a breach of copyright as:
> >>
> >> Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
> >> of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
> >>
> >> is the first sentence of the GPL v.2 document!
> >
> >I've emailed lawr...@smoothwall.org to request confirmation on the exact
> >licensing sitation with regard to "Smoothwall GPL" 0.9.9 beta pointing
out
> >my concerns. If I get an answer I'll post the relevant data here.
>
> Can you paraphrase it so that we don't have to read one of his normal
> rants?
>
> I mean, Smoothwall's good, but he treats the folk on the mailing list
> like shit.
>
> --
> Tony Evans (ICQ : 170850)
> Recommended Author : Stan Nicholls
[http://www.herebedragons.co.uk/nicholls]
> When all you have is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail.
> Meet the wife : http://www.darkstorm.org/grete
Jason Clifford
> Thought I'd add my comments. Richard Morrell does *NOT* treat people on the
> mailing list like shit. I've made a few lame postings to them, with no
> problem. Any questions have been answered (quickly) by a list member (oftem
> Richard) The smoothwall mailing lists are helpful and informative. Richard
> may voice his opinions 'enthusiastically' but the way I see it
> a) He's provided me with a brilliant piece of software
Actually Richard appears to have written relatively little of Smoothwall.
He started the project along with Lawrence however so you're sort of
right.
> b) Why shouldn't he say what he wants on then list?
There are many Smoothwall users and ex-Smoothwall users who have suffered
similar abuse to that I was subjected to. It's not only rude but it is
damaging to those who abuse, are abused and those who witness it.
Indeed at least one Smoothwall mailing list has died due to such abuse and
the controversy it caused.
If you, the Smoothwall community, are content to live in such an
environment that is, of course, your choice and it's your alone to make.
> c) If you don't like the way it's done, simple. Don't use it. There are
> other solutions. It's just smoothwall is the best. If you must bicker about
> GPL, vote with your feet, but I won't be joining you.
I am not sure Smoothwall is the best. I took a look at some of the code
today and I'm not very confident that it is entirely secure - note I have
not thoroughly tested it yet so I am NOT saying it is insecure. That's
something of an aside however as the issue with the GPL was not bickering.
I raised a very valid query. If you want actual proof of what I posted you
can check this newsgroup for what was actually posted here and you can
check my web site (http://www.jasonclifford.com/smoothwall.html) where I
have posted full copies of all emails between myself and Richard as well
as those I received from other Smoothwall team members.
I acknowledge that Smoothwall now asserts the GPL. As others have pointed
out Smoothwall may not actually be compatible with the GPL anyway due to a
couple of incompatible terms.
On license issues right now I will say I don't personally have any issues
with Smoothwall.
Jason Clifford
MJ Ray
> Thought I'd add my comments. Richard Morrell does *NOT* treat people on the
> mailing list like shit. I've made a few lame postings to them, with no
> problem. Any questions have been answered (quickly) by a list member (oftem
> Richard) The smoothwall mailing lists are helpful and informative.
Now, you try disagreeing with Richard's opinions and see whether or
not he "treat[s] people [...] like shit". I can quite easily believe
that questions about projects would be answered nicely.
> Richard
> may voice his opinions 'enthusiastically' but the way I see it
> a) He's provided me with a brilliant piece of software
If that's your opinion, it's OK, as long as the software is legal.
The problem was that the undisclosed licence could have put resellers
in breach of the law.
> b) Why shouldn't he say what he wants on then list?
He can, but you can't expect people not to call a spade a spade.
> c) If you don't like the way it's done, simple. Don't use it. There are
> other solutions. It's just smoothwall is the best. If you must bicker about
> GPL, vote with your feet, but I won't be joining you.
I hope one of the rumblings about a debian-based smoothwall-like
project comes to fruition, so that those of us who care about our
freedoms can have an alternative. I doubt many of the "who cares
about the licence - just use the software" brigade will switch, but
then that's probably the same group who think it's OK to trade warez
and buy DVDs, isn't it?
Dave Pearson
> c) If you don't like the way it's done, simple. Don't use it. There are
> other solutions. It's just smoothwall is the best. If you must bicker
> about GPL, vote with your feet, but I won't be joining you.
If someone detects possible licence issues with a (any) given item of
software the worst thing they can do is "vote with their feet". Moreover,
you seem to be missing the point of free software if you think that concern
over the freedom of free software is "bickering".
Daniel Barron
> * Daniel Barron <dan...@DeleteMeAndInvalidForNoSpam.jadeb.com.invalid>:
>
> > Avoiding smoothwall just because you don't like one guy in the development
> > team would be a really silly move.
>
> They appear to be avoiding smoothwall because they might suffer prejudice
> at the hands of the smoothwall community as a whole depending on where they
> decide to source this supposedly free software. Isn't that the intention of
> the comment Richard said he'd place on the smoothwall web site?
I can't imagine that would happen. The smoothwall community do not, in
general, prejudice people. I wonder how they would know where it was
obtained? I don't know the answer to your last question.
Daniel Barron
So, how would they know? Also not only do the developers give free support
to the users, the other users do.