Re: [Evolution] Should we kill the legal thread?

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On 11 Apr 2001 17:38:22 -0400, Tom Cooper wrote:
> > From: Jeffrey Stedfast [mailto:fejj ximian com]
> > Can we please just stop this thread? 
> Well, there's a good reason that this thread is continuing.  I work for
> a large enterprise...an enterprise which already has deployed an
> enterprise directory.  If LDAP support was available, I could have
> access to the full directory of users instead of having to look them up
> on one platform and manually type them in on another.
>
> I love evolution, and am thrilled that Ximian is producing it.  As a
> Linux devotee', I look for every opportunity to leverage quality
> products that work under Linux.  Ximian's mailer is the best one I've
> seen for me under Linux while in X.
>
> I simply don't have the time or energy to download sources and compile
> them for my platform just to get LDAP support to work.
>
> I'm doing my best to provide meaningful and relevant feedback about the
> issues encountered with the daily builds of Evolution.  I do the best I
> can, and it does take a certain amount of my time to pull this off.  Myer
> personal time invested on breaks and during lunches or while working
> late.  It's a small contribution I can make to the free software
> movement.
>
> > Like it or not it is *not*
> > compatable with the GPL so give it a rest. If you don't believe
> > it then ask Richard Stallman at the FSF. Since he says it's
> > incompatable, we are not going to link with it.
> Is RMS the final authority on such things?  Is he an attorney?


Since he wrote it, he has a fair say in such matters.  The FSF have
laywers too.  I'll bounce this to him for comment anyway.

> > I really don't want to be discussing legal dribble anymore.
> I appreciate that.  I'd like to see issues that I've discovered
> addressed, like the IMAP crashes that I've reported for the last several
> days....
>
> However, this is NOT drivel to me.  It's important to me to be able to
> point to the LDAP-compatible server and look up addresses.  Until the
> LDAP support comes built-in, I simply can't.
>
>
> It's painfully obvious to most that IANAL, but in reading the OpenLDAP
> license, and RMS' rant on it, I respectfully disagree.  We're not
> talking about the QT/Troll Tech kind of license, and I think it's
> perfectly reasonable to ask that the distributions be linked with it.


Well are you a lawyer?  Just saying "i think it looks ok" isn't really
any good unfortunately.

Trust me, we are not doing this merely to make life tough for you, there
is a real licensing issue involved, and although we may be idealistic,
we are committed to producing a completely FREE mail client.  And taking
liberty with our license of choice (GPL) could undermine this goal
irrecoverably (e.g. take the binary modules in the linux kernel).

If you want to get everything for zero cost as well, you might just have
to wait a little longer, but it *WILL* get there eventually.

As someone else stated, there is a Mozilla LDAP SDK, if that is suitably
licensed, the solution may be quite simple.  Otherwise, a basic LDAP
client api isn't particularly hard to write, we just dont have the time
or resources to handle it yet.

 !Z