On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 12:45:05PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
I'm particularly interested if any FSF people count the Smoothwall developers as friends and how we can best counteract the FUD about the GPL that is being spread by this project.
I knew someone once who did some documentation or website stuff for the project ages ago; I don't think that counts ;)
Let me throw a few other vegetables into the broth: SmoothWall apparantly now calls home (processor version, etc.), and this is now considered a 'condition of ownership': i.e., don't like it, don't install it. There seems to be a bogus 'your mods are copyright to us too' statement in there, which seems to be the source of the current contention (selling a modded version of Smoothy?).
Given they've changed the GPL, I don't think it's the GNU GPL anymore. I can understand the ADSL bits being notGPL - I don't think we have free adsl drivers yet? - but as for the installer? Hmm. Do SuSE still have a non-free license on YaST? That's what it reminds me of.
I can't say I know Jason, although I've had some dealings with him (fixing my mail quite often - he's my ISP as well as my 'dealer' ;), and he's never been anything other than thoroughly pleasant. I'm assuming this is pretty much a personal thing, or at least, that is what initiated it. Also, am I right in saying Richard at Smoothwall is/was a VA Linux employee? Both guys seem to have a track record in not only open source, but free software.
I wonder if we are going to see a Freewall...
Cheers,
Alex.
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