From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Sun Jan 26 20:48:56 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA17899 for ; Sun, 26 Jan 1997 20:48:55 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id RAA05973; Sun, 26 Jan 1997 17:46:58 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199701270153.UAA16593@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 20:53:11 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <87lo9gdq4z.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> from "Michael Alan Dorman" at Jan 26, 97 05:32:12 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 885 Lines: 20 > The new release of Debian GNU/Linux is going to be frozen on the 27th > of February, and I'd _really_ like to be able to put ncurses-4.0 in > there, but am loath to do so before it's been officially released. > Does anyone have a clear idea when the "official" 4.0 is going to hit > the stands? > > Furthermore, does anyone have any objection if I package the current, > un-official 4.0 release so that our maintainers may begin building > packages against it, so those packages can ship in the next release of > Debian? I would object strenuously. So would Zeyd benHalim. Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing to communicate with the other three. When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 04:37:41 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id EAA21147 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 04:37:40 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id BAA22430; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 01:34:32 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 10:36:57 +0100 From: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? References: <87lo9gdq4z.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> <199701270153.UAA16593@snark.thyrsus.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56e Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <199701270153.UAA16593@snark.thyrsus.com>; from "Eric S. Raymond" on Jan 26, 1997 20:53:11 -0500 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1265 Lines: 33 > I would object strenuously. So would Zeyd benHalim. > > Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. > It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing > to communicate with the other three. > > When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. I am already using it with the major number set to 3.0, as did past versions of ncurses ship with... (So no need to recompile all binaries.) I consider the current version to be better than one of those very old ones. Development over the Internet is not really easy as people also want credit for what they do. Maybe it would be best, just to talk about stability and the remaining bugs for some time. My wishes: An official bug-list that Thomas Dickey seems to have. More open development so that beta-tester can test the whole thing before things are uploaded to sunsite or the main site by Zeyd. (I very much appreciate the packages at ftp.clark.net.) You all have done a good job at the development, please don't let ncurses break. Greetings to all of you, Florian La Roche P.S.: Dunno if I should write something about it, but I have listened to ncurses development for some time and the current status is just not the best... From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 04:52:51 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id EAA22563 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 04:52:51 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id BAA22732; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 01:44:28 -0800 (PST) From: User Interface mailing list recipient Message-Id: <199701270950.BAA15933@plant.season.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 01:50:33 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <199701270153.UAA16593@snark.thyrsus.com> from "Eric S. Raymond" at Jan 26, 97 08:53:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 486 Lines: 15 +---- Eric S. Raymond wrote: | Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. | It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing | to communicate with the other three. | | When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. +---- Is there a public schedule for ncurses? Or terminfo? Or is this the beginning of the end of a stable ncurses tree? -- Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com The Internet is not The Channel. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 11:24:31 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA12288 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 11:24:29 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA04083; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 08:10:17 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199701271616.LAA20793@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 11:16:29 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <199701270950.BAA15933@plant.season.com> from "User Interface mailing list recipient" at Jan 27, 97 01:50:33 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 499 Lines: 13 > Is there a public schedule for ncurses? Or terminfo? There's never been a public schedule. This was one of my major gripes with Zeyd's handling of the project, and remains a major gripe with Thomas Dickey's behavior. > Or is this the beginning of the end of a stable ncurses tree? That's a very good question -- one Thomas appears not to have thought about very carefully. Or, at least, he won't tell anybody what he's thinking. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 11:50:12 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA21475 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 11:50:11 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA05695; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 08:40:04 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 17:42:19 +0100 From: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? References: <199701270950.BAA15933@plant.season.com> <199701271616.LAA20793@snark.thyrsus.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56e Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <199701271616.LAA20793@snark.thyrsus.com>; from "Eric S. Raymond" on Jan 27, 1997 11:16:29 -0500 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 989 Lines: 28 > There's never been a public schedule. This was one of my major > gripes with Zeyd's handling of the project, and remains a major gripe > with Thomas Dickey's behavior. But now people can test the current ncurses version and discuss about the stability and possible release plans. If discussion won't be possible in the future, I hope Thomas will know enough about release cycles... > > > Or is this the beginning of the end of a stable ncurses tree? > > That's a very good question -- one Thomas appears not to have thought > about very carefully. Or, at least, he won't tell anybody what he's > thinking. I think development can just continue. Thomas will add any posted patches and make development snapshots. Release cyles are also a bit more in his hand, but anybody can make suggestions. No reason to turn down good arguments, or? Thomas has done a very good job with the development versions until now. I hope that he will continue doing so. Greetings, Florian La Roche From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 12:20:29 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA02186 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 12:20:28 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA07169; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 09:10:46 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199701271717.MAA21135@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 12:17:00 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: from "Florian La Roche" at Jan 27, 97 05:42:19 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 782 Lines: 20 > But now people can test the current ncurses version and discuss about > the stability and possible release plans. Nothing they couldn't do before. > If discussion won't be possible in the future, I hope Thomas will know > enough about release cycles... > I think development can just continue. Thomas will > add any posted patches and make development snapshots. > Release cyles are also a bit more in his hand, but anybody can > make suggestions. Except that he has betrayed the other three co-developers (Zeyd, Juergen Pfeifer, and myself). He's showing that he no longer cares to cooperate with us except on terms he dictates by obstinate silence. That's not acceptable behavior, and nobody should reward it. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 17:46:31 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA22974 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 17:46:30 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id OAA19982; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 14:42:20 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <32ED3694.2F49E491@T-Online.de> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 00:13:24 +0100 From: Juergen Pfeifer X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.28 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? References: <199701270153.UAA16593@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1567 Lines: 43 Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > > Furthermore, does anyone have any objection if I package the current, > > un-official 4.0 release so that our maintainers may begin building > > packages against it, so those packages can ship in the next release of > > Debian? > > I would object strenuously. So would Zeyd benHalim. > I do not object, because "unofficial" 4.0 is reasonable stable for this kind of prerelease work. Eric is doing politics here. I don't like that. > Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. > It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing > to communicate with the other three. > This is not true. Thomas put's me as CC on nearly all his ncurses related mails since I mentioned that I have sometimes problems with the ncurses mailing list. > When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. This is rather unfriendly. Looking at what has been done at least in the last six months, Thomas and I did most of the coding for ncurses maintenance and development. Thomas' regular postings were all very reliable and of good quality, much better than sometimes in the past. No doubt about your contribution Eric, but who the hell gives you the right to allow or deny a release? This should be the result of a cooperative process. I fully agree that Thomas, measured by his own quality standards, should provide a public schedule for the release. Please, please, please stop politics and start to cooperate again. Cheers Juergen -- http://home.t-online.de/home/Juergen.Pfeifer From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 16:49:19 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA03646 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 16:49:16 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA17603; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 13:44:14 -0800 (PST) From: User Interface mailing list recipient Message-Id: <199701272150.NAA16667@plant.season.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 13:50:46 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <199701271616.LAA20793@snark.thyrsus.com> from "Eric S. Raymond" at Jan 27, 97 11:16:29 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 713 Lines: 20 +---- Eric S. Raymond wrote: | > Is there a public schedule for ncurses? Or terminfo? | There's never been a public schedule. This was one of my major | gripes with Zeyd's handling of the project, and remains a major gripe | with Thomas Dickey's behavior. To be fair, I haven't seen a terminfo schedule either. | > Or is this the beginning of the end of a stable ncurses tree? | That's a very good question -- one Thomas appears not to have thought | about very carefully. Or, at least, he won't tell anybody what he's | thinking. +---- >From my limited and uninformed vantage point it looks like it takes two kids to tangle. -- Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com The Internet is not The Channel. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 17:55:55 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA26415 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 17:55:55 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id OAA19868; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 14:39:39 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <32ED37EB.2B6E5FC3@T-Online.de> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 00:19:07 +0100 From: Juergen Pfeifer X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.28 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? References: <199701271717.MAA21135@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 950 Lines: 28 Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > > But now people can test the current ncurses version and discuss about > > the stability and possible release plans. > > Nothing they couldn't do before. > > > If discussion won't be possible in the future, I hope Thomas will know > > enough about release cycles... > > > I think development can just continue. Thomas will > > add any posted patches and make development snapshots. > > Release cyles are also a bit more in his hand, but anybody can > > make suggestions. > > Except that he has betrayed the other three co-developers (Zeyd, > Juergen Pfeifer, and myself). He's showing that he no longer cares to > cooperate with us except on terms he dictates by obstinate silence. > > That's not acceptable behavior, and nobody should reward it. In Germany we say, if you point with your finger on somebody, four fingers are pointing back to yourself... Juergen -- http://home.t-online.de/home/Juergen.Pfeifer From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jan 27 18:20:37 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA05262 for ; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 18:20:35 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA20938; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 15:07:47 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199701272313.SAA22581@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 18:13:55 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <32ED3694.2F49E491@T-Online.de> from "Juergen Pfeifer" at Jan 28, 97 00:13:24 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1669 Lines: 40 > > Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. > > It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing > > to communicate with the other three. > > This is not true. Thomas put's me as CC on nearly all his ncurses related > mails since I mentioned that I have sometimes problems with the ncurses > mailing list. But he won't answer my questions. He won't explain why he removed me from the LSM. He won't answer Zeyd's mail either. He refused to withdraw his rogue release when Zeyd asked him to. And he refuses to explain his behavior. He has also tried to make trouble for me over at Sunsite. Fortunately Erik Troan saw through that and copied me on it. > > When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. > > This is rather unfriendly. You're damned straight it's unfriendly. I'm extremely angry about his behavior; I consider it arrogant, underhanded, and inexcusable. And if he doesn't change his behavior, I'm going to do a lot more to spike his guns. When he took my name off the LSM without asking me, he made it personal. > No doubt about your contribution Eric, but who the hell gives you the > right to allow or deny a release? This should be the result of a > cooperative process. That'a exactly my point. He's *not* cooperating with me, he's *not* cooperating with Zeyd. He's expecting us to just live with whatever he decides. No explanation, no communication, nothing. > Please, please, please stop politics and start to cooperate again. I'd be happy to. But Thomas has to at least explain himself first. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jan 29 01:50:38 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA25531 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 01:50:37 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA16032; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:40:18 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:40:18 -0800 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199701290640.WAA21693@netcom4.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1399 Lines: 38 >> Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. >> It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing >> to communicate with the other three. >> >> When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. > >I am already using it with the major number set to 3.0, as did past >versions of ncurses ship with... (So no need to recompile all >binaries.) Most programs will probably never notice the difference, but there ARE differences. Moving to 4.0 also allows the package version to match the shared library version. It is not that critical if you are installing ncurses yourself, but for distribution maintainers it is. >I consider the current version to be better than one of those very >old ones. Nobody is denying that it is. >My wishes: An official bug-list that Thomas Dickey seems to have. Which Eric has been nagging for the last few months. >More open development so that beta-tester can test the whole thing >before things are uploaded to sunsite or the main site by Zeyd. >(I very much appreciate the packages at ftp.clark.net.) Unfortunately they are very public. We've had several instances of people putting betas up on sunsite or prep. >You all have done a good job at the development, please don't >let ncurses break. I don't have time to mediate, and Tom seems to be going his own way. I'm open to suggestions. Zeyd From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jan 29 01:52:05 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA25634 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 01:52:04 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA16142; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:44:30 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:44:30 -0800 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199701290644.WAA21894@netcom4.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 813 Lines: 21 >> Is there a public schedule for ncurses? Or terminfo? > >There's never been a public schedule. This was one of my major >gripes with Zeyd's handling of the project, and remains a major gripe >with Thomas Dickey's behavior. Not to deflect the blame (guilty as charged!) but I've yet to see anyone come up with any sort of schedule. Since Eric/Tom/Juergen did 99% of the coding and I packaged the result it seems they would have a better sense of what's ahead (considering the ultra-secret todo lists :-) >> Or is this the beginning of the end of a stable ncurses tree? > >That's a very good question -- one Thomas appears not to have thought >about very carefully. Or, at least, he won't tell anybody what he's >thinking. I certainly don't know, but I am disappointed with his lack of co- operation. Zeyd From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jan 29 02:23:46 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA29076 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 02:23:45 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id XAA17296; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:21:03 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:21:03 -0800 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199701290721.XAA24304@netcom4.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 3520 Lines: 76 >Eric S. Raymond wrote: >> >> > Furthermore, does anyone have any objection if I package the current, >> > un-official 4.0 release so that our maintainers may begin building >> > packages against it, so those packages can ship in the next release of >> > Debian? >> >> I would object strenuously. So would Zeyd benHalim. >> > >I do not object, because "unofficial" 4.0 is reasonable stable for this >kind of prerelease work. Eric is doing politics here. I don't like that. You misunderstand. The problem is not with what is in the release but in the way it was "released". Tom dumped a copy in my incoming directory, uploaded it to sunsite and his ftp site. All his happened BEFORE any one was informed (hence all the questions as to when 4.0 was released). Moreover, Tom took the liberty of declaring himself the official maintainer, took Eric out of the loop, announced publicly the location of betas. Don't forget that Eric and I STILL own the copyright on ncurses. I would think it would be common courtesy to consult with us before you go off declaring yourself as the new dictator in town. >> Please do *not* package and redistribute the so-called "4.0.0" release. >> It is a power play by one of the co-developers. He has been refusing >> to communicate with the other three. >> > >This is not true. Thomas put's me as CC on nearly all his ncurses related >mails since I mentioned that I have sometimes problems with the ncurses >mailing list. Put he pointedly REMOVED Eric from the CC list whenever I sent him and Juergen any mail. I understand that he was pissed at Eric's tone, but the sulking was getting childish. I was trying to mediate between them, but Tom was rebuffing my efforts and going around me all together. >> When there is an official release, I will allow it on Sunsite. > >This is rather unfriendly. Looking at what has been done at least in the ^^^^^^^^^^ That's rich! What would you consider Tom's ACTIONS? >last six months, Thomas and I did most of the coding for ncurses >maintenance and development. Thomas' regular postings were all very >reliable and of good quality, much better than sometimes in the past. Nobody is doubting Tom's or Juergen's contributions. I packaged 1.9.9g as the last snapshot before we got 4.0.0 out the door. Several last minute broken code (what's new) and problems with my internet connection contributed to a Xmas release slipping. Next thing I know people are asking me when did 4.0 come out!! >No doubt about your contribution Eric, but who the hell gives you the >right to allow or deny a release? This should be the result of a >cooperative process. Easy there! Eric and I OWN the copyright on ncurses, so you would think we would have some say. I think I have been fairly co-operative. I had serious concern about packing the Ada95 code in the main distribution (adding 1MB) but I went ahead and included in 1.9.9g. >I fully agree that Thomas, measured by his own quality standards, >should provide a public schedule for the release. Isn't that like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Tom already release 4.0 and it is floating around cyberspace. >Please, please, please stop politics and start to cooperate again. I'm more than willing to repackage Tom's 4.0 and any subsequent patches for an offical 4.1 (now I understand IBM's version numbers :-). BUT before that happens we need to clear up what are trying to achieve in the next year or so AND clean up the docs to clarify the situation. Zeyd From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jan 29 05:23:35 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA13134 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 05:23:35 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id CAA22521; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 02:11:07 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 11:13:20 +0100 From: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? References: <199701290640.WAA21693@netcom4.netcom.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56e Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <199701290640.WAA21693@netcom4.netcom.com>; from Zeyd M. Ben-Halim on Jan 28, 1997 22:40:18 -0800 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1334 Lines: 32 > >I am already using it with the major number set to 3.0, as did past > >versions of ncurses ship with... (So no need to recompile all > >binaries.) > > Most programs will probably never notice the difference, but there ARE > differences. Moving to 4.0 also allows the package version to match the > shared library version. It is not that critical if you are installing > ncurses yourself, but for distribution maintainers it is. I just renamed the shared libs so that the library name and the major name match. That is not too difficult... I'm doing this for the jurix-distribution and for S.u.S.E. The ld.so dictated that move. I don't cnsider this an ncurses bug. It is in the interest of the distribution that one major number is kept as long as possible, if nearly all progs use ncurses... > >More open development so that beta-tester can test the whole thing > >before things are uploaded to sunsite or the main site by Zeyd. > >(I very much appreciate the packages at ftp.clark.net.) > > Unfortunately they are very public. We've had several instances of > people putting betas up on sunsite or prep. Just write a small text that this is not desired. But such things happen and it is much worse if there are not those very public betas around. Open development gets much more bugs fixed... Greetings, Florian La Roche From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jan 29 06:12:18 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id GAA16799 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 06:12:17 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id CAA23436; Wed, 29 Jan 1997 02:49:10 -0800 (PST) From: "T.E.Dickey" Message-Id: <199701291049.FAA09400@clark.net> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 05:49:06 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <199701290721.XAA24304@netcom4.netcom.com> from "Zeyd M. Ben-Halim" at Jan 28, 97 11:21:03 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2118 Lines: 44 > You misunderstand. The problem is not with what is in the release but in > the way it was "released". Tom dumped a copy in my incoming directory, > uploaded it to sunsite and his ftp site. All his happened BEFORE any one I do save my email. The actual story is somewhat different. Yours keeps growing. > was informed (hence all the questions as to when 4.0 was released). > Moreover, Tom took the liberty of declaring himself the official maintainer, nope. The wording is "primary maintainer", which is true (no one can deny that, though some people insist on being added to the list w/o any plausible reason). > took Eric out of the loop, announced publicly the location of betas. Unfortunately, Eric is part of the loop. And resents the changing of any of the ~700 places where he's marked his name. beta's have been publicly announced since mid April 1996. Your reaction is a bit delayed. > Don't forget that Eric and I STILL own the copyright on ncurses. I would think not exactly true. I hold (that's the correct term) a copyright on about 1/4 of the system. Juegen holds a copyright on slightly more than that. Eric & you have asserted a collective copyright on ncurses, which is not quite the same thing. However the work during 1996 was mostly mine; there's no legal way that you can assert copyright on that. (If you want numbers, Eric's contribution during the past 9 months is only 3rd or 4th behind Juergen - he's just ahead of Alexander). > Put he pointedly REMOVED Eric from the CC list whenever I sent him and Juergen > any mail. I understand that he was pissed at Eric's tone, but the sulking I believe that I did this one time - and also you removed CC from one of my postings. (Please be consistent). > Nobody is doubting Tom's or Juergen's contributions. I packaged 1.9.9g as > the last snapshot before we got 4.0.0 out the door. Several last minute um. I packaged 1.9.9g (this is a matter of record). You had no changes. (And the content for 4.0 was agreed in advance, as well as a tentative target date) -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 14:23:05 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA04649 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:23:02 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id LAA26504; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 11:13:56 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:15:30 -0500 (EST) From: Shawn Poulson To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: ncurses portability Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 698 Lines: 16 I installed ncurses on my Linux 2.0.28 system and am using it to work on a project involving an ircii/emacs type interface. ncurses is really easy and has suited my task well so far but I didn't realize it was for linux/bsd mostly and there's no mention of portability to systems such as IRIX, Solaris 2, etc. I attempted to compile/test ncurses on an SGI IRIX 6.2 system. It compiled perfect but if I ran any of the test programs it gives me: Error opening terminal: vt100. Anyone know what's going on? btw, 'vt100' is what's in my TERM env variable. --- Shawn Poulson Email: mrdata@interstat.net GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 16:36:20 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA06439 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 16:36:16 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA01285; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 13:29:08 -0800 (PST) From: User Interface mailing list recipient Message-Id: <199701302129.NAA20475@plant.season.com> Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 13:29:52 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <199701290640.WAA21693@netcom4.netcom.com> from "Zeyd M. Ben-Halim" at Jan 28, 97 10:40:18 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1335 Lines: 39 +---- Zeyd M. Ben-Halim wrote: | I'm open to suggestions. +---- Cool! I went through this tread and pulled out the desires, as that is usually the cause of suffering. In no particular order: * Official ncurses releases for OS distributions. * Not distributing unofficial releases. * Communication between developers. * Official bug list. * Open development for easy beta testing. * Stability for ncurses users. * Public development schedule. * Continued development. * No dictation. * A stable mailing list. (Ah ha! It's all Netcoms fault!) * Predictable decision process for releases. * LSM edits (undoing, fixing, etc). * No rogue releases. * No dirty tricks. * Politeness. * State goals for the next year. * Cleanup docs. * Clarification of roles. * Optimization of the credits. * Clarification of copyrights. My suggestion is adding to this list, concerned parties sorting by preference, adding commentary for specific items, and comparing lists. As a member of the peanut gallery I'm not particularly concerned about this taking place in public or private, or even that it takes place. I'm just thankful to all of the developers, bug reporters, and anyone else that has made ncurses as cool as it is. I hope it stays that way. -- Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com The Internet is not The Channel. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 16:06:10 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA28405 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 16:04:56 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA00407; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 13:01:33 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 13:01:19 -0800 From: pj@sam.engr.sgi.com (Paul Jackson) Message-Id: <199701302101.NAA12411@sam.engr.sgi.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: ncurses portability Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 699 Lines: 16 |> ncurses on an SGI IRIX 6.2 system ... Error opening terminal: vt100. ... or you can reconfigure with: "configure --datadir=/usr/lib" if you don't plan to "make install.data" I just finished compiling ncurses 4.0 on IRIX 6.2, with patches ncurses-4.0-970104 through ncurses-4.0-970125 applied. It is working, with this change to find terminfo, and one other strange change: the files dft_fgbg.3x and lib_dft_fgbg.c ended up, after patching, in the directory that I had the patch in, rather than under the man and ncurses subdirectories, respectively, where they belonged. I won't rest till it's the best ... Software Production Engineer Paul Jackson (pj@sgi.com; pj@usa.net), 3x1373 From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 18:50:37 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA06782 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:50:35 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA05625; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 15:41:16 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:43:01 -0500 (EST) From: Shawn Poulson To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: ncurses portability In-Reply-To: <199701302101.NAA12411@sam.engr.sgi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 749 Lines: 18 On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Paul Jackson wrote: > ... or you can reconfigure with: "configure --datadir=/usr/lib" > if you don't plan to "make install.data" > > I just finished compiling ncurses 4.0 on IRIX 6.2, with patches > ncurses-4.0-970104 through ncurses-4.0-970125 applied. It is > working, with this change to find terminfo, and one other strange > change: the files dft_fgbg.3x and lib_dft_fgbg.c ended up, after > patching, in the directory that I had the patch in, rather than > under the man and ncurses subdirectories, respectively, where they > belonged. Where did you obtain 4.0? I found 3.9.9e on sunsite. --- Shawn Poulson Email: mrdata@interstat.net Let him who is stoned cast the first sin. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 21:22:32 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA07162 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:22:31 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id SAA10740; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:11:42 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:11:43 -0800 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199701310211.SAA24944@netcom6.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1518 Lines: 42 > Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com wrote: > +---- Zeyd M. Ben-Halim wrote: > | I'm open to suggestions. > +---- > >Cool! I went through this tread and pulled out the desires, as >that is usually the cause of suffering. In no particular order: > > * Official ncurses releases for OS distributions. > * Not distributing unofficial releases. > * Communication between developers. > * Official bug list. > * Open development for easy beta testing. > * Stability for ncurses users. > * Public development schedule. > * Continued development. > * No dictation. > * A stable mailing list. (Ah ha! It's all Netcoms fault!) > * Predictable decision process for releases. > * LSM edits (undoing, fixing, etc). > * No rogue releases. > * No dirty tricks. > * Politeness. > * State goals for the next year. > * Cleanup docs. > * Clarification of roles. > * Optimization of the credits. > * Clarification of copyrights. > >My suggestion is adding to this list, concerned parties sorting >by preference, adding commentary for specific items, and >comparing lists. As a member of the peanut gallery I'm not >particularly concerned about this taking place in public or >private, or even that it takes place. I'm just thankful to all >of the developers, bug reporters, and anyone else that has made >ncurses as cool as it is. I hope it stays that way. Since you are full of good idea :-), maybe you should volunteer to coordinate the ncurses effort as I mentioned in an earlier message. >-- >The Internet is not The Channel. > From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jan 30 21:17:11 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA06187 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:17:10 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id SAA10619; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:08:04 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:08:05 -0800 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199701310208.SAA24598@netcom6.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: 4.0 to go official soon? Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1033 Lines: 20 >> You misunderstand. The problem is not with what is in the release but in >> the way it was "released". Tom dumped a copy in my incoming directory, >> uploaded it to sunsite and his ftp site. All his happened BEFORE any one >I do save my email. The actual story is somewhat different. Yours keeps >growing. Tom, I'm not going to argue with you, it does neither of us any good. All I want to do is get this train wreck back on track. So far you have not shown any willingness to re-co-operate(!) towards a consensus/offical 4.1. If you are interested please say so. I understand you have reservations about the way Eric does and says things, but sulking is not going to get us anywhere. If you are not willing, I'll have to wipe my hands of this and let you and Eric fight it out. There seems to be an ego fight as to wrote how much of what, and that is a bad sign. Maybe someone else would like to volunteer to be the overall coordinator. I'll keep ncurses-list running until we make up our minds one way or the other. Zeyd From gjohnson@season.com Tue Feb 4 18:54:37 1997 Received: from dream.season.com (dream.season.com [205.179.33.42]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with SMTP id SAA25973 for ; Tue, 4 Feb 1997 18:54:32 -0500 (EST) Received: (from gjohnson@localhost) by dream.season.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) id PAA01914; Tue, 4 Feb 1997 15:31:25 -0800 Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 15:31:25 -0800 From: Reality is a point of view Message-Id: <199702042331.PAA01914@dream.season.com> To: dickey@clark.net, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, zmbenhal@netcom.com, Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de, ncurses-list@netcom.com, perf@efd.lth.se Posted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps Subject: Re: NCURSES 4.0 - text terminal control library References: Organization: season.com [205.179.33.0] Status: RO Content-Length: 1301 Lines: 45 [This message has also been posted.] +---- dickey@clark.net wrote (Tue, 04 Feb 1997 13:14:43 GMT): | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- | | NCURSES 4.0 is available at | | ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurse/ncurses-4.0.tgz | | (sorry for the somewhat late announcement - it was announced on the ncurses | mailing list but not widely announced) | | 4.0 vs 1.9.9g: | the main difference is the renumbering of versions to accommodate | Linux's ld.so.1.8.5 | | other changes (read the NEWS file for details) may also affect you: | | + bug fixes for rendering color | | + library now performs resize in an XSI-compatible fashion) | | - -- | Thomas E. Dickey | dickey@clark.net | http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey | | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- | Version: 2.6.3i | Charset: noconv | | iQCVAwUBMvc1SIQRll5MupLRAQFUmAP+N6Okz9G4J0XBZdT0X8BLTT4sKW4y44kI | Btu1s6z0UoJTQHzzdm59psbb8NrJGOLZ0K3+mr+PU/vYUyNOHvQfDCQPHse/SVrb | tX2Hx8IeQy9I8sfIy4GAp39/JDErmT/0zXKN8nhOUsE5IxxsZ8qU8/Fsy6qo3Tv4 | M6njjHPpBEQ= | =Jjdo | -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- +---- Have the developer issues been resolved? The last I saw on the ncurses mailing list seemed to imply that this is not an 'official' release. -- Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com The Internet is not The Channel. From dickey Thu Jan 30 15:12:58 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: ncurses portability To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 15:12:58 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: from "Shawn Poulson" at Jan 30, 97 02:15:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 1445 Lines: 37 > > I installed ncurses on my Linux 2.0.28 system and am using it to > work on a project involving an ircii/emacs type interface. ncurses is > really easy and has suited my task well so far but I didn't realize it was > for linux/bsd mostly and there's no mention of portability to systems such no. Its default configuration is different on linux/bsd, but it runs nicely on IRIX and Solaris. > as IRIX, Solaris 2, etc. > I attempted to compile/test ncurses on an SGI IRIX 6.2 system. It > compiled perfect but if I ran any of the test programs it gives me: > > Error opening terminal: vt100. > > Anyone know what's going on? btw, 'vt100' is what's in my TERM > env variable. you're probably configured with the application looking for terminfo in /usr/local/share/terminfo (/usr/local is the default prefix because you normally don't want to install into the same directory as the vendor's software). Given that, if you didn't "make install.data", it'll not find the terminfo data (this is in the INSTALL file). To test without installing, on IRIX, Solaris, etc., when you're confiogured this way, you can always set the $TERMINFO variable, e.g., setenv TERMINFO /usr/share/lib/terminfo (on this Solaris box). > > --- > Shawn Poulson Email: mrdata@interstat.net > GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. > -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Thu Jan 30 18:17:47 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: ncurses portability To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 18:17:47 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <199701302101.NAA12411@sam.engr.sgi.com> from "Paul Jackson" at Jan 30, 97 01:01:19 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 806 Lines: 20 > working, with this change to find terminfo, and one other strange > change: the files dft_fgbg.3x and lib_dft_fgbg.c ended up, after > patching, in the directory that I had the patch in, rather than > under the man and ncurses subdirectories, respectively, where they > belonged. That could be an artifact of 'patch' - which one are you using? Since those were new files, they appear in the patch as Index: man/dft_fgbg.3x --- /dev/null Sun Jul 17 19:46:18 1994 +++ ncurses-4.0-970118/man/dft_fgbg.3x Sat Jan 18 21:51:30 1997 The /dev/null may confuse some older versions of patch -- they may work if an explicit zero-length file were referenced. (I generate all of my patches the same way, so this wouldn't be a new problem). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Feb 4 23:22:21 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA16588 for ; Tue, 4 Feb 1997 23:22:18 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id UAA11936; Tue, 4 Feb 1997 20:14:19 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199702050420.XAA21390@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: NCURSES 4.0 - text terminal control library To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 23:20:32 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <199702042331.PAA01914@dream.season.com> from "Reality is a point of view" at Feb 4, 97 03:31:25 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 274 Lines: 7 > Have the developer issues been resolved? The last I saw on the > ncurses mailing list seemed to imply that this is not an > 'official' release. They have not been resolved, but negotiations are going forward. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Feb 5 14:19:11 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA05994 for ; Wed, 5 Feb 1997 14:19:10 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id LAA09920; Wed, 5 Feb 1997 11:11:25 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 14:11:14 -0500 (EST) From: "Jason A. Pfeil" To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: NCURSES 4.0 - text terminal control library In-Reply-To: <199702042331.PAA01914@dream.season.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2116 Lines: 62 On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, Reality is a point of view wrote: This sounds great, but is this a stable, official release? I have upgraded several times to newer versions as they became available, but stopped in mid-december, deciding to wait until an official, stable release had been made. Thanks! > [This message has also been posted.] > +---- dickey@clark.net wrote (Tue, 04 Feb 1997 13:14:43 GMT): > | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > | > | NCURSES 4.0 is available at > | > | ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurse/ncurses-4.0.tgz > | > | (sorry for the somewhat late announcement - it was announced on the ncurses > | mailing list but not widely announced) > | > | 4.0 vs 1.9.9g: > | the main difference is the renumbering of versions to accommodate > | Linux's ld.so.1.8.5 > | > | other changes (read the NEWS file for details) may also affect you: > | > | + bug fixes for rendering color > | > | + library now performs resize in an XSI-compatible fashion) > | > | - -- > | Thomas E. Dickey > | dickey@clark.net > | http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey > | > | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > | Version: 2.6.3i > | Charset: noconv > | > | iQCVAwUBMvc1SIQRll5MupLRAQFUmAP+N6Okz9G4J0XBZdT0X8BLTT4sKW4y44kI > | Btu1s6z0UoJTQHzzdm59psbb8NrJGOLZ0K3+mr+PU/vYUyNOHvQfDCQPHse/SVrb > | tX2Hx8IeQy9I8sfIy4GAp39/JDErmT/0zXKN8nhOUsE5IxxsZ8qU8/Fsy6qo3Tv4 > | M6njjHPpBEQ= > | =Jjdo > | -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > +---- > > Have the developer issues been resolved? The last I saw on the > ncurses mailing list seemed to imply that this is not an > 'official' release. > > -- > Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com > The Internet is not The Channel. > +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Jason A. Pfeil pfeil@cs.fsu.edu http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~pfeil Linux: The Choice of a GNU Generation Computer Science Systems Group --------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy...I know many things." --Worf, DS9 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Feb 5 16:25:21 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA17561 for ; Wed, 5 Feb 1997 16:25:18 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA14291; Wed, 5 Feb 1997 13:16:35 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199702052122.QAA23979@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: NCURSES 4.0 - text terminal control library To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 16:22:54 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: from "Jason A. Pfeil" at Feb 5, 97 02:11:14 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 534 Lines: 11 > This sounds great, but is this a stable, official release? I have > upgraded several times to newer versions as they became available, but > stopped in mid-december, deciding to wait until an official, stable > release had been made. Thanks! 4.0 is a rogue release by Thomas and is not official. The other project maintainers (Zeyd benHalim, myself, and Juergen Pfeifer) are attempting to negotiate the situation with Thomas and will do an official release shortly. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Feb 6 15:46:35 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.7.3/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA02226 for ; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 15:46:34 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id MAA27453; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 12:36:23 -0800 (PST) From: User Interface mailing list recipient Message-Id: <199702062040.MAA04620@plant.season.com> Subject: Re: ncurses version and preprocessor To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 12:40:31 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: from "Kaz Kylheku" at Feb 6, 97 09:45:38 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 544 Lines: 19 +---- Kaz Kylheku wrote: | abortOn Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Alexander V. Lukyanov wrote: | > How about | > #if !defined(NCURSES_VERSION_MAJOR) || NCURSES_VERSION_MAJOR<5 | > #error this program requires ncurses 5.x or higher | > #endif Sounds good to me. | That's a useful trick at times, but here it really only catches the user | who has not read the documentation. +---- I would prefer an automated catch if a pile of email or newsgroup postings is the alternative. -- Gary Johnson gjohnson@season.com The Internet is not The Channel. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Feb 12 14:37:53 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA28794 for ; Wed, 12 Feb 1997 14:37:52 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id LAA15711; Wed, 12 Feb 1997 11:29:21 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:31:10 +0200 Message-Id: <199702121931.VAA12630@polva.helsinki.fi> From: Tomas Vanhala To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Where to get ncurses-1.9.9g ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 604 Lines: 28 Hello. When trying to retrieve ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses/ncurses-1.9.9g.tar.gz I get the following error: ftp> get ncurses-1.9.9g.tar.gz 200 PORT command successful. 553 Permission denied. File owned by ftp. The ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu does not seem to have been updated, and an archie search did not reveal any alternative mirror. So my questions are: 1) Has 1.9.9g been actually released? 2) How do I get hold of it? Regards Tomas Vanhala p.s. I apologise if this question has been answered before, but I was not able to locate any archive of this mailing list. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Feb 24 16:37:12 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA09233 for ; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 16:37:08 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA02198; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:17:03 -0800 (PST) From: ib@wupperonline.de (Ingo Brueckl) Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 19:59:00 +0100 Subject: Problems with ncurses 1.9.9e X-Mailer: SlipDoor Message-Id: <3312397f@wupperonline.de> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 725 Lines: 17 Hi. I compiled ncurses 1.9.9e and intended to replace libtermcap and libcurses by it, linking everything against libncurses. When I ran the tests I had to observe that most of the results are a kind of strange, mainly there is no display of forms input (invisible like entering a password) and that there are only five really different character attributes: inverse (for standout and inverse), bold (for bold and underline), dim (for dim), blinking (for blinking) and normal for the rest. Even the attribute 'invisible' is visible! I use Slackware 3.1 and programs linked with libtermcap display 'underlined' in dark cyan for example. How can I make ncurses using some different colors for the character attributes? Ingo From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Sat Apr 12 21:52:52 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA10283 for ; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 21:52:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id SAA22092; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 18:42:03 -0700 (PDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Message-Id: <199704130141.VAA15495@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: mailing list updates To: ncurses-list@netcom.com (Ncurses Mailing List) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 21:41:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 784 Lines: 21 We are in the process of moving the ncurses mailing list (with all persons currently subscribed) to bsdi.com from netcom. Zeyd M. Ben-Halim, the current list-maintainer is aware of this activity, and has proposed ceasing maintenance once this is complete. Keith Bostic has suggested that after cutover, Zeyd convert his mailing list into an auto-forward to the new list so that no traffic would be lost. This sounds like a good idea, and we will ask Zeyd if he would care to do this. Questions should be directed to any of the following: dickey@clark.net Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de bostic@bsdi.com (host) kelly@bsdi.com (system administrator) -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Sun Apr 13 05:33:35 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA08893 for ; Sun, 13 Apr 1997 05:33:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id CAA29369; Sun, 13 Apr 1997 02:23:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <19970413121049.02169@nick> Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:10:49 +0000 From: "Nick E. Kirilov" To: Ncurses Mailing List Subject: two questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.69e Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1701 Lines: 39 Hi. I'm a newcomer to this list so if the problems that bother me were discussed/FAQ'ed/archived somewhere please direct me there. Recently I tried to use ncurses for the first time and was puzzled by the following: a) I cannot understand ncurses version numbering policy at all. First, why the library version is 1.9.9g but sonames are numbered 3.4? It would make sense if ncurses, panel, menu and form had individual revisions with single "release version" for them all; but they are same. Second, why soname includes what is generally regarded as "minor version number"? After I figured out that 3.0 (aka 1.9.9e on my RedHat4.0) is too buggy for my purposes (something weird with wsyncup) I decided to upgrade and soon found out that everything that needs ncurses is linked against lib*.3.0 and new libraries are lib*.3.4; naturally, dynamic linker does not find them (I did "ln -s lib*.3.4 lib*.3.0" to fix it). May be they are indeed incompatible? I've run minicom, mutt, aumix, top--everything seems to work though. b) In version 3.4 (that is 1.9.9g) if I do *not* call keypad(stdscr, TRUE); in the beginning (soon after initscr()) newwin() and new_menu() always return NULL, while new_item() works OK. 3.0 had no such requirement. Before I start looking into the code, is it a known problem? BTW, in misc/ncurses-intro.html there's missing which breaks the rest of the document when viewed with Lynx. Also in misc/hackguide.html two anchors are misspelled. Should post fixes for those here? -- _ ___ __ / |/ (_)___/ /__ | I am programmar^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H / / / __/ '_/ | I am pragmaror^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H /_/|_Regards_/\_\ | I WRITE CODE From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Apr 30 03:05:13 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id DAA12463 for ; Wed, 30 Apr 1997 03:05:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id XAA04906; Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:44:58 -0700 (PDT) From: charles@krl.caltech.edu Message-Id: <9704300642.AA26622@regulus.krl.caltech.edu> Subject: Distributing ncurses... To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:42:03 -0700 (PDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 532 Lines: 14 Greetings, We're in the process of putting together an _Introduction to Artificial Life_ textbook which comes with a CD and free software on it. Some of this software requires ncurses to compile on unix systems, and I was wondering what the policy would be for including the ncurses distribution on the CD. All the software is clearly stated as freeware, and information is given on which ftp site to get it off of so you can always be kept up to date on the newest versions. Please let me know! Thanx. :-) --- Charles From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Apr 30 02:15:30 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA00272 for ; Wed, 30 Apr 1997 02:15:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA03532; Tue, 29 Apr 1997 22:51:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 08:54:19 +0300 Message-Id: <199704300554.IAA01915@polva.helsinki.fi> From: Tomas Vanhala To: ncurses-list@netcom.com CC: ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com In-reply-to: (message from Jason Evans on Tue, 29 Apr 1997 14:14:07 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: Shared libraries on HP-UX MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 470 Lines: 14 Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 14:14:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans [...] have the terminfo database in place before they work anyway. However, I expect this would a major headache to do just for HP-UX, and it breaks the traditional "make ; make install" routine. Are there other OSes that have the same problem? FreeBSD perhaps? I noticed this problem on SunOS 4.1.3 while installing ncurses-1.9.9g. Regards, Tomas Vanhala From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Apr 30 06:16:32 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id GAA13789 for ; Wed, 30 Apr 1997 06:16:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id CAA12925; Wed, 30 Apr 1997 02:53:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Message-Id: <199704300953.FAA06703@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: Shared libraries on HP-UX To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 05:53:47 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199704300554.IAA01915@polva.helsinki.fi> from "Tomas Vanhala" at Apr 30, 97 08:54:19 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1159 Lines: 33 > Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 14:14:07 -0700 (PDT) > From: Jason Evans > > [...] > > have the terminfo database in place before they work anyway. However, I > expect this would a major headache to do just for HP-UX, and it breaks the > traditional "make ; make install" routine. Are there other OSes that have > the same problem? FreeBSD perhaps? > > I noticed this problem on SunOS 4.1.3 while installing ncurses-1.9.9g. actually, it'll work on SunOS/Solaris/IRIX by setting the $TERMINFO variable to point to the vendor's files as well (they're binary-compatible, though some minor differences apply). the ncurses mailing list has moved to bsdi.com, subscribe by sending mail to ncurses-request@mailgate.bsdi.com (I've been doing the maintenance for the past year, and recently cut over to a new mailing list). The current distributions are 1.9.9g (on prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu) and 4.0 (ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurses). http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html (I'm not posting to the old list anymore - thanks) -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed May 14 13:07:33 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA00847 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 13:07:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA15205; Wed, 14 May 1997 09:56:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 11:55:20 -0500 (CDT) From: Tim Mooney To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: A small fixes for ncurses-1.9.9g on NetBSD 1.2D. In-Reply-To: <199705132232.SAA24642@explorer2.clark.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 789 Lines: 19 On Tue, 13 May 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote: >I will check, but perhaps this is fixed in the current release (4.1) at > ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurses I've been a list member and a very minor contributor to ncurses for a while now, but I don't remember seeing any announcement about changes in "licensing" for ncurses. How come the current release isn't available on prep and the other GNU mirror sites? I'm well aware of the changes in maintainer-ship of the project, but I wasn't aware that the changes were more far-reaching. Tim -- Tim Mooney mooney@dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak.edu Information Technology Services (701) 231-1076 (Voice) Room 242-J1, IACC Building (701) 231-8541 (Fax) North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164 From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Thu May 15 21:42:59 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA09177 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:42:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id TAA26010 for ncurses-outgoing; Thu, 15 May 1997 19:29:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id TAA26006 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 19:29:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id TAA04166 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 19:29:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA03710 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:28:48 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id VAA04336 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Thu, 15 May 1997 21:29:13 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705160129.VAA04336@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: ncurses 4.1 (re-tag) To: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 21:29:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 2168 Lines: 60 ncurses 4.1 (again ;-) - 970515 - T.Dickey H.J.Lu sent me mail right after I tagged 4.1 with changes to integrate ncurses as an add-on to glibc. Since it would be a little awkward distributing ncurses + patch + glibc, I decided it would be better to integrate his change, and re-tag the release. (Of course, I'm still working on 4.2 ...) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS | 5 ++++- dist.mk | 4 ++-- 2 files changed, 6 insertions, 3 deletions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Index: NEWS --- ncurses-4.1-970510+/NEWS Sat May 10 19:04:37 1997 +++ ncurses-4.1-970515/NEWS Thu May 15 20:33:12 1997 @@ -1,6 +1,9 @@ This is a log of changes that ncurses has gone through since Zeyd started working with Pavel Curtis' original work, pcurses, in 1992: +970515 4.1 release for upload to prep.ai.mit.edu + + re-tag changes since 970505 as 4.1 release. + 970510 + modify ncurses 'g' test to allow mouse input + modify default xterm description to include mouse. @@ -27,7 +30,7 @@ + modify configure script to cache LD, AR, AR_OPTS (patch by H.J.Lu ) -970505 4.1 release +970505 4.1 pre-release + regenerate the misc directory html dumps without the link list, which is not useful. + correct dependency in form directory makefile which caused unnecessary Index: dist.mk Prereq: 1.37 --- ncurses-4.1-970510+/dist.mk Sat May 10 12:00:23 1997 +++ ncurses-4.1-970515/dist.mk Thu May 15 20:33:41 1997 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -# $Id: dist.mk,v 1.37 1997/05/10 16:00:23 tom Exp $ +# $Id: dist.mk,v 1.38 1997/05/16 00:33:41 tom Exp $ # Makefile for creating ncurses distributions. # # This only needs to be used directly as a makefile by developers, but @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ # These define the major/minor/patch versions of ncurses. NCURSES_MAJOR = 4 NCURSES_MINOR = 1 -NCURSES_PATCH = 970510 +NCURSES_PATCH = 970515 # We don't append the patch to the version, since this only applies to releases VERSION = $(NCURSES_MAJOR).$(NCURSES_MINOR) -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon May 19 05:57:58 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA00878 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 05:57:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id DAA21415 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 19 May 1997 03:50:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id DAA21411 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 03:50:12 -0600 (MDT) Received: from ecotone.toad.com (ecotone.toad.com [165.227.13.32]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with SMTP id DAA28006 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 03:50:10 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from hugh@localhost) by ecotone.toad.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA12252; Mon, 19 May 1997 02:49:20 -0700 Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 02:49:20 -0700 Message-Id: <199705190949.CAA12252@ecotone.toad.com> From: Hugh Daniel To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: ncurses-4.1, no ncurses.h Reply-to: hugh@xanadu.com Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 370 Lines: 10 I just noticed that there is no ${PREFIX}/include/ncurses.h installed even though you have the lib's installed under both names. This broke lynx. Oh, fyi the ./configure program can't handle shared libs under OpenBSD and the message looks a bit like the ./configure just died, even though it did (sans shared libs). ||ugh Daniel hugh@toad.com hugh@xanadu.com From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon May 19 06:19:13 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id GAA02658 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 06:19:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id EAA21441 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 19 May 1997 04:07:43 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id EAA21437 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 04:07:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from ecotone.toad.com (ecotone.toad.com [165.227.13.32]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with SMTP id EAA28739 for ; Mon, 19 May 1997 04:07:36 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from hugh@localhost) by ecotone.toad.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA12755; Mon, 19 May 1997 03:06:45 -0700 Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 03:06:45 -0700 Message-Id: <199705191006.DAA12755@ecotone.toad.com> From: Hugh Daniel To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: ncurses-4.1, ucky include in curses.h Reply-to: hugh@xanadu.com Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 487 Lines: 15 Line 54 of curses.h is: #include which looks to me like developemnt code where someone had not gotten the makefile to point at the right include directory. This break compileing lynx again. Same thing again on line 46 of "unctrl.h". Well now the first couple of lynx files compile. I don't know about this though, I have real work to do and this is a bit crazed. Thanks for keeping at it though, have fun. ||ugh Daniel hugh@toad.com hugh@xanadu.com From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Thu May 22 11:19:17 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA26459 for ; Thu, 22 May 1997 11:19:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id JAA23253 for ncurses-outgoing; Thu, 22 May 1997 09:01:53 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id JAA23249 for ; Thu, 22 May 1997 09:01:45 -0600 (MDT) Received: from TDC.dircon.co.uk (root@tdc.dircon.co.uk [194.112.32.50]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with SMTP id JAA15876 for ; Thu, 22 May 1997 09:01:39 -0600 (MDT) Received: from trix.dircon.co.uk by TDC.dircon.co.uk with SMTP id AA07460 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 22 May 1997 16:01:13 +0100 Received: (from gps@localhost) by trix.dircon.co.uk (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA04125; Thu, 22 May 1997 06:59:42 +0100 Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 06:59:41 +0100 (BST) From: Graham Swallow To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: /usr/include/ncurses/ncurses.h not updated in 4.1 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 527 Lines: 12 Hi, thanks for ncurses-4.1, it compiled OK on a much overwritten slackware 3.0/3.2 but later I found other code using the wrong header(s) did I miss a configure --option? [cc: mail -- I'm not on the list] Graham gps@trix.dircon.co.uk -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Linux Info Pages: http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/Raven/ Home Page, click: http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~trix/ -------------------------------------------------------------- From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Fri May 30 01:03:34 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA28526; Fri, 30 May 1997 01:03:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id BAA00346; Fri, 30 May 1997 01:07:55 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199705300507.BAA00346@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Mr. Dickey's playtime is over To: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 01:07:54 -0400 (EDT) Cc: dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com In-Reply-To: <19970529234517.34937@olorin.eecs.lehigh.edu> from "Jesse Thilo" at May 29, 97 11:45:17 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 4014 Lines: 79 Jesse Thilo writes: > On Thu, May 29, 1997 at 09:18:48PM -0400, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > > To the terminfo.src maintainer, > > c'est moi > > Since when? (Seriously) Mr. Dickey appears to have decided that hijacking one project and screwing over Zeyd and myself wasn't enough for him. Now he's asserting control of the terminfo database I maintain, as well. This is only the latest instance of a pattern of arrogance and treachery. While Thomas Dickey's technical work on ncurses has undoubted merit, his behavior towards the two copyright holders and senior maintainers (Zeyd and myself) has been not only grossly unethical but, under U.S. copyright law and the Berne Convention, actually unlawful. I've had enough of this. Repeated attempts by myself and others to get Thomas Dickey to account for his behavior have failed. He won't answer my mail. He has repeatedly ignored Zeyd benHalim's protests about the unauthorized 4.0 and 4.1 releases. He has altered credits on the ncurses distribution without authority to do so and without the consent of the persons affected. As one of the copyright owners of ncurses, I have the legal right to forbid Thomas Dickey from distributing or modifying the ncurses sources. I have refrained from exercising it because I felt I had more important things to do than get in a pissing match with a skunk. I'm afraid I have allowed disgust at this prospect, and the well-meaning but misguided advice of others, to paralyze me for six months. My tolerance, and my paralysis, is ended. Since neither attempts at negotiation nor the customary norms of cooperative behavior in the hacker community seem to mean anything to Mr. Dickey, it's time for force majeure. Exercising my legal rights, I have just deleted the unauthorized 4.1 release from prep.ai.mit.edu. I now forbid Thomas Dickey from redistributing, modifying, or otherwise using the ncurses sources without the explicit permission of Zeyd BenHalim and myself, the copyright holders. He is enjoined to desist immediately under penalty of law. I am copying this note to the administrators of clark.net and to the ncurses lists. All parties should consider themselves notified that Mr. Dickey and clark.net no longer have the copyright holders' permission to carry ncurses sources and are required to delete them from clark.net's FTP areas and all other file areas of clark.net, under penalty of law. (Permission for clark.net to carry these sources will be granted once I am satisfied that Mr. Dickey is no longer in a position to use clark.net to violate Mr. benHalim's and my rights.) I ask all members of the ncurses lists to shun Thomas Dickey, beginning immediately and continuing unless and until he makes a public agreement to respect the rights and project seniority of Zeyd BenHalim and myself. Under no circumstances will he be permitted to control future distributions. I'll see to that if I have to have him sued or thrown in jail to ensure it. The ncurses sources were written as free software and will so remain; my exercise of rights is a specific response to Thomas Dickey's repeated unethical behaviors and his usurpation of the software, and I have no intention to prevent others from using the sources in all customary ways. I will open a 4.2 archive hosted at snark by next Wednesday (it would be sooner but I'm traveling this weekend). In the interest of neutralizing any possible feeling that I merely wish to selfishly control the project, I will also accept (and am confident Zeyd benHalim as senior maintainer will support) self-nomination by any third parties of good reputation on the ncurses list to take on the roles of principal maintainers. After a suitable probationary period, the present copyright holders will assign rights to those maintainers. If no suitable persons come forward, I will maintain the source tree myself until such time as I can hand off the job to a competent and ethical maintainer. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Fri May 30 02:18:19 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA09532 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 02:18:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id XAA04150; Thu, 29 May 1997 23:07:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <338E7DCC.2B55FD5D@cimtec.net.au> Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 17:12:12 +1000 From: Rick Marshall Organization: CIMTEC PTY LIMITED X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.0 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: Mr. Dickey's playtime is over References: <199705300507.BAA00346@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1348 Lines: 29 Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > The ncurses sources were written as free software and will so remain; > my exercise of rights is a specific response to Thomas Dickey's > repeated unethical behaviors and his usurpation of the software, and I > have no intention to prevent others from using the sources in all > customary ways. I will open a 4.2 archive hosted at snark by next > Wednesday (it would be sooner but I'm traveling this weekend). > > In the interest of neutralizing any possible feeling that I merely wish to > selfishly control the project, I will also accept (and am confident > Zeyd benHalim as senior maintainer will support) self-nomination by any > third parties of good reputation on the ncurses list to take on the > roles of principal maintainers. After a suitable probationary period, > the present copyright holders will assign rights to those maintainers. > > If no suitable persons come forward, I will maintain the source tree > myself until such time as I can hand off the job to a competent and > ethical maintainer. Here, here. 'bout time. We need more software engineers of the standard of Eric and Ben contributing the "free" world. To see them treated poorly reflects on all of us. I have benefitted enormously from their work both personally and professionally and fully support Eric's stand on this matter. RJM From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Fri May 30 05:35:28 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA06174 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 05:35:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id DAA03105 for ncurses-outgoing; Fri, 30 May 1997 03:23:59 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id DAA03101 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 03:23:53 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA09595 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 03:23:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id EAA02191; Fri, 30 May 1997 04:56:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id EAA29244; Fri, 30 May 1997 04:56:45 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705300856.EAA29244@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: vt102-w terminfo.src fix To: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com (Jesse Thilo) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 04:56:45 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List), Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) In-Reply-To: <19970529234517.34937@olorin.eecs.lehigh.edu> from "Jesse Thilo" at May 29, 97 11:45:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 441 Lines: 16 > > On Thu, May 29, 1997 at 09:18:48PM -0400, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > > To the terminfo.src maintainer, > > c'est moi > > Since when? (Seriously) de facto - he's not responded (other than his flame last night) to the changes for terminfo.src since november. since I'm unable to rely on getting corrections made to that version, ncurses maintains its own copy. sorry. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Fri May 30 10:56:37 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA15607 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 10:56:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id IAA05731 for ncurses-outgoing; Fri, 30 May 1997 08:44:23 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id IAA05723 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 08:43:57 -0600 (MDT) Received: from headwall.maine.com (headwall.maine.com [204.176.0.12]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA24864 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 08:43:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from cfm@localhost) by headwall.maine.com (8.7.5/8.7.5) id KAA27636 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Fri, 30 May 1997 10:48:24 -0400 From: "Christopher F. Miller" Message-Id: <199705301448.KAA27636@headwall.maine.com> Subject: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: ncurses@bsdi.com Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 10:48:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 756 Lines: 19 I recently upgraded with a newer ncurses fetched from clark.net site; it went in fine. It's the interface for all of our accounting, customer records, and database services. It is a huge amount of work well done and I'd like to thank the developers collectively for it before the shootout. Speaking of which, is there an alternative like passing on the overall stewardship to someone **like** cygnus, caldera, gnu, etc...? Some organization with a track record in managing talented and strong personalities? .02 cfm -- Christopher F. Miller, Publisher cfm@maine.com MaineStreet Communications, Inc 208 Portland Road, Gray, ME 04039 1.207.657.5078 (MTRF 3-5pm) http://www.maine.com/ From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Fri May 30 11:34:32 1997 Received: from allison.clark.net (allison.clark.net [168.143.0.3]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id LAA03220 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 11:33:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by allison.clark.net (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA05754 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 11:33:19 -0400 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id JAA06369 for ncurses-outgoing; Fri, 30 May 1997 09:17:25 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id JAA06365 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 09:17:11 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA26819 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 09:17:06 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id LAA04338; Fri, 30 May 1997 11:21:18 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199705301521.LAA04338@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: cfm@maine.com (Christopher F. Miller) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 11:21:18 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199705301448.KAA27636@headwall.maine.com> from "Christopher F. Miller" at May 30, 97 10:48:23 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1037 Lines: 22 Christopher Miller writes: > Speaking of which, is there an alternative like passing on the overall > stewardship to someone **like** cygnus, caldera, gnu, etc...? Some > organization with a track record in managing talented and strong > personalities? I have already said that I am willing to see the primary maintainer role passed to a safe third party (and I don't think Zeyd would object at this point, either, though I can't commit him on this). I actually asked Keith Bostic (the former 4.4BSD maintainer and a strong supporter of this project) to take over six months ago, in an effort to avoid this confrontation. He wouldn't do it, for which I can't say I blame him. I don't want to maintain ncurses for the rest of time. Technically, the work I wanted to do on it is nearly accomplished. If some person or organization of good repute wants to step up to the plate, I am more than willing to cooperate for a smooth transition and orderly transfer of rights. -- Eric S. Raymond From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Fri May 30 13:32:44 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id NAA04165; Fri, 30 May 1997 13:32:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id NAA28313; Fri, 30 May 1997 13:33:07 -0400 Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 13:33:07 -0400 Message-Id: <199705301733.NAA28313@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: esr@snark.thyrsus.com cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net Cc: dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: ncurses 4.1 Status: RO Content-Length: 847 Lines: 20 Having seen only one side of the story, I don't know Dickey did, or whether it was illegal or even uncool. But there are certain general things I can say for certain: 1. The copyright holders of ncurses cannot retroactively deny any party the right to change and distribute ncurses in accord with the distribution terms that are published on it. A freedom which can be summarily taken away is no freedom at all. 2. If someone has violated these distribution terms, that's a different matter, since that is doing something for which permission was never given. 3. None of you is authorized to delete files from prep.ai.mit.edu. If I believe that ncurses 4.1 was made illegally, or if I conclude that it's not good for the community, I'll stop the FSF's distribution of it. But I am going to judge this for myself, after hearing both sides. From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Fri May 30 14:07:22 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA17613; Fri, 30 May 1997 14:07:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id OAA10277; Fri, 30 May 1997 14:12:00 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199705301812.OAA10277@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 14:12:00 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199705301733.NAA28313@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at May 30, 97 01:33:07 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 2261 Lines: 44 RMS: > If I believe that ncurses 4.1 was made illegally, or if I conclude > that it's not good for the community, I'll stop the FSF's distribution > of it. But I am going to judge this for myself, after hearing both > sides. Thomas Dickey is in violation of my Berne Convention rights with respect to software issued under my copyright. The Berne Convention (which was incorporated into U.S. law by statute and is recognized by subsequent case law) is very specific on the right of artists to prevent mutilation or defacement of their works (regardless of any explicit terms of license invoked by the offending party) and I consider that to have been one of the offences here. It is certainly not good for the community to allow Thomas Dickey to hijack a project from its senior maintainers (Zeyd benHalim and myself) against our protests, and jeopardize our good names. The free-software culture depends on reputation incentives, and therefore on the right of free-software authors not to have their work abused and misrepresented by others, or their names removed from it in violation of customary norms. Whatever you decide on the legal issue, be advised that I would certainly consider further distribution of Dickey's rogue "4.1" to be a personal offense against me, in violation of my customary rights and prejudicial to my good name. It was I who originally added Thomas Dickey to the ncurses developer list. Now I intend to force him off it, because he has demonstrated that he cannot be trusted. The trigger of my action was his attempt to claim control of yet *another* project of mine! I do not take this action lightly. I have been involved in more than forty successful free-software projects and have never before felt pushed to such an extreme. My ultimatum follows many months of fruitless efforts to negotiate or find some other solution. Nor do I seek selfish control of the ncurses sources. One such solution acceptable to me might be for the FSF to designate some person of good reputation to maintain the source tree. I can't speak for Zeyd, but I would be willing to assign copyright (and would urge him to do likewise) to an acceptable third-party maintainer. -- Eric S. Raymond From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Fri May 30 14:30:32 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA26616; Fri, 30 May 1997 14:30:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id OAA10386; Fri, 30 May 1997 14:33:42 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199705301833.OAA10386@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 14:33:42 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199705301733.NAA28313@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at May 30, 97 01:33:07 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 1942 Lines: 36 > If I believe that ncurses 4.1 was made illegally, or if I conclude > that it's not good for the community, I'll stop the FSF's distribution > of it. But I am going to judge this for myself, after hearing both > sides. Thomas Dickey has violated my rights under the Berne Convention, which has been incorporated into U.S. statute law and affirmed in subsequent case law. The Berne convention is explicit on the right of copyright- holding artists to prevent mutilation and defacement of their work, regardless of explicit licensing terms or even subsequent sale. I consider that to have been one of the offenses here. It would certainly not be good for the free-software community to allow Thomas Dickey to get away with hijacking a project from its senior maintainers (Zeyd benHalim and myself) as he has done. Custom in the hacker community grants certain rights of final say to senior maintainers for a reason -- it's a key part of the non-economic conditions that make the whole system work. Hackers tie up their reputations in what they write. If project founders and their designated successors don't get to keep at least artistic control and the right to prevent interlopers from making off with active projects, the whole system of reputation incentives is seriously threatened. That is the principle I am defending here. Regardless of what you conclude about the legalities of the issue, be advised that I would consider further redistribution of Dickey's rogue "4.1" to be an offense against me, prejudicial to my good name. Please be reassured that I do not seek selfish control of the ncurses sources. I have already said in public that I would be willing to assign my rights in them (both legal and customary) to a third-party maintainer of good reputation, and would urge Zeyd to do likewise. If the FSF wishes to propose such a person, my mind is open. -- Eric S. Raymond From jasone@leo.mrc.uidaho.edu Fri May 30 14:50:08 1997 Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA04663; Fri, 30 May 1997 14:50:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id LAA17767; Fri, 30 May 1997 11:50:13 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 11:50:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans Reply-To: Jason Evans To: ncurses-list@netcom.com cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com Subject: Re: Mr. Dickey's playtime is over In-Reply-To: <199705300507.BAA00346@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 2529 Lines: 54 On Fri, 30 May 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Jesse Thilo writes: > > On Thu, May 29, 1997 at 09:18:48PM -0400, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > > > To the terminfo.src maintainer, > > > c'est moi > > > > Since when? (Seriously) > > Mr. Dickey appears to have decided that hijacking one project and screwing over > Zeyd and myself wasn't enough for him. Now he's asserting control of the > terminfo database I maintain, as well. > > I've had enough of this. Repeated attempts by myself and others to > get Thomas Dickey to account for his behavior have failed. He won't > answer my mail. He has repeatedly ignored Zeyd benHalim's protests > about the unauthorized 4.0 and 4.1 releases. He has altered credits > on the ncurses distribution without authority to do so and without > the consent of the persons affected. ... > As one of the copyright owners of ncurses, I have the legal right to > forbid Thomas Dickey from distributing or modifying the ncurses > sources. I have refrained from exercising it because I felt I had > more important things to do than get in a pissing match with a skunk. > I'm afraid I have allowed disgust at this prospect, and the well-meaning > but misguided advice of others, to paralyze me for six months. Whoa... This is all very surprising to me, as well as concerning and confusing. I looked through the ncurses 4.1 distribution for copyright information, and now I'm even more confused. Can someone please shed some light on the following? 1) Under what license was the predecessor to ncurses released? (pcurses) 2) Doesn't the copyright notice by Zeyd Ben-Halim and Eric Raymond grant permission to do pretty much anything with the ncurses distribution? 3) As long as Thomas Dickey didn't remove the copyright notice from any of the header files (which means there could conceivably end up being header file with nothing but a copyright notice in them), hasn't he abided by the ncurses license as stated by Ben-Halim and Raymond? 4) Why wasn't ncurses re-released under the GPL/LGPL long ago in order to make the copyright situation clearer? 5) Why is ncurses on the GNU distribution sites when it doesn't have a GPL? I was completely shocked to not find the GPL in the ncurses distribution. 6) Why are people so concerned over who owns free software? Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From 06162912249-0001@t-online.de Fri May 30 17:31:49 1997 Received: from mailout05.btx.dtag.de (mailout05.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.153]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id RAA08444; Fri, 30 May 1997 17:31:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fwd00.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.160] by mailout05.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 0wXZH3-00027g-00; Fri, 30 May 1997 23:31:49 +0200 Received: from tower (06162912249-0001(btxid)@[194.25.242.16]) by fwd00.btx.dtag.de with smtp (S3.1.29.1) id ; Fri, 30 May 97 23:31 MET DST Message-ID: <338F46F3.423CB99D@T-Online.de> Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 23:30:27 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b3C (X11; I; Linux 2.0.30 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com CC: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199705301812.OAA10277@snark.thyrsus.com> <199705302013.QAA30481@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Status: RO Content-Length: 2385 Lines: 61 Richard Stallman wrote: > I'd rather not come to any conclusion about who did right or wrong, > or > what the FSF ought to do, without knowing the facts and hearing both > > sides of the story. > > Eric, could you tell me the specific things that Dickey did which > you > think are wrong? If you prefer, you could tell just me, rather than > > the whole list. That could avoid distracting harsh arguments. I'm now active as an ncurses contributor (forms, menu and GNAT binding)and maintainer (various essential changes to broken or incomplete stuff) since 1995. I don't understand what's going on. Thomas Dickey is a competent and fair maintainer of ncurses. He puts in all the names of people contributing patches or new ideas to ncurses, even people reporting a problem are mentioned. In all my EMail conversations with him he reacted properly, competent and humble. He is the one doing continuos maintenance on ncurses, publishing patches on a weekly basis. His takeover of the ncurses project wasn't a hijacking! This has been discussed between Zeyd, Eric, Thomas and me. What Eric says is simply unfair. The only occasions his name on ncurses items became visible in the last months was when he started a flame war like the current one. If he feels this is an unfair statement I ask him to give an example of a significant contribution to ncurses he made in the last 12 month. My impression is that he knows a lot of people and has a lot of contacts in the freeware scene, and now he abuses this for his private war against Thomas Dickey. If Eric really has no interest in maintaining ncurses, why doesn't he Thomas just let do his good job. As a contributor to ncurses I'm really shocked about his attempt to reclaim the copyright. I started to contribute two years ago based on my understanding, that this is free software as stated in all headers. They actually asked for contributors. Shall I now also withdraw all my code because I'm pissed of by this childish behaviour? What a nonsense!!! But as a reminder to Eric: acording to your own arguments not all of ncurses belongs to you! I really ask you all to calm down and come to a consensus how the ncurses project should proceed. To convince me you should present a good argument why any new arrangement should be better than the current working one. Juergen -- http://home.t-online.de/home/Juergen.Pfeifer From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sat May 31 09:46:17 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA18058 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 09:46:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id RAA12417 for ncurses-outgoing; Fri, 30 May 1997 17:27:47 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAA12413 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 17:27:34 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA29810 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 17:27:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA17978; Fri, 30 May 1997 19:25:36 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id TAA06992; Fri, 30 May 1997 19:26:06 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705302326.TAA06992@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: questions about the copyright status of ncurses To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 19:26:06 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at May 30, 97 11:50:13 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1916 Lines: 40 > Whoa... This is all very surprising to me, as well as concerning and > confusing. I looked through the ncurses 4.1 distribution for copyright > information, and now I'm even more confused. Can someone please shed some > light on the following? > > 1) Under what license was the predecessor to ncurses released? (pcurses) > 2) Doesn't the copyright notice by Zeyd Ben-Halim and Eric Raymond grant > permission to do pretty much anything with the ncurses distribution? right. > 3) As long as Thomas Dickey didn't remove the copyright notice from any of > the header files (which means there could conceivably end up being > header file with nothing but a copyright notice in them), hasn't he > abided by the ncurses license as stated by Ben-Halim and Raymond? right (there's a couple of c files that I've completely rewritten, such as lib_twait.c, but keep the copyright since the interface hasn't changed, or did so so gradually that I didn't split out the new code - but it's in the change history) > 4) Why wasn't ncurses re-released under the GPL/LGPL long ago in order to > make the copyright situation clearer? I gather that Zeyd (or Eric) disapprove of GPL. I disapprove of going to extremes on this, so BSD-style (which is still stricter than ncurses's) is what I'm using at the moment. > 5) Why is ncurses on the GNU distribution sites when it doesn't have a > GPL? I was completely shocked to not find the GPL in the ncurses > distribution. I don't know the story about 1.9.9g; I asked to have 4.1 there because of a tie-in to glibc (as well as to point people at a newer version than 1.9.9g), and to better support the Lynx development. > 6) Why are people so concerned over who owns free software? beats me. I can understand people wanting proper credit for their work. but Eric wants more than that. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Fri May 30 19:29:54 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 19:29:54 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: <19970530233240.16532@knorke.saar.de> from "Florian La Roche" at May 30, 97 11:32:40 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 467 Lines: 13 > But I cannot say, that Thomas Dickey is a bad maintainer of the ncurses > source code. As far as I can see, he includes all patches he gets send. I try to - though there's a backlog of the problem reports. > It is astonishing for me, that the ncurses source code is still that unfree. same here - it's free, but not free. but keep the patches (and bug reports) coming. I'll try to keep up. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sat May 31 01:02:11 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA13797 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 01:01:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id WAA13389 for ncurses-outgoing; Fri, 30 May 1997 22:53:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id WAA13385 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 22:53:13 -0600 (MDT) Received: from cimtec.net.au (root@[203.30.248.49]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA12278 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 21:56:45 -0600 (MDT) Received: from rjmnote (root@[203.30.248.248]) by cimtec.net.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA04036; Sat, 31 May 1997 13:53:38 +1000 Message-ID: <338FB083.7A9305A7@cimtec.net.au> Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 15:00:51 +1000 From: Rick Marshall Organization: CIMTEC PTY LIMITED X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.0 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Florian La Roche CC: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses References: <199705301448.KAA27636@headwall.maine.com> <199705301521.LAA04338@snark.thyrsus.com> <19970530233240.16532@knorke.saar.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 446 Lines: 14 Florian La Roche wrote: > > But I cannot say, that Thomas Dickey is a bad maintainer of the ncurses > source code. As far as I can see, he includes all patches he gets send. > Not true. I've given up sending patches as subsequent releases haven't included my patches and ncurses is then unuseable in my applications. I'm using 1.9.9g (plus my patches) and will leave it there. It just takes too long to regress a poorly patched update. RJM From dickey Sat May 31 05:56:36 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: rjm@cimtec.net.au (Rick Marshall) Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 05:56:36 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List), Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) In-Reply-To: <338FB083.7A9305A7@cimtec.net.au> from "Rick Marshall" at May 31, 97 03:00:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 848 Lines: 22 > Florian La Roche wrote: > > > > But I cannot say, that Thomas Dickey is a bad maintainer of the ncurses > > source code. As far as I can see, he includes all patches he gets send. > > > > Not true. I've given up sending patches as subsequent releases haven't > included my patches and ncurses is then unuseable in my applications. I haven't received a patch from Rick Marshall since the end of October. He submitted a patch to color-manipulation - noted in the NEWS file - which Juergen modified, and I integrated it. That's in 1.9.9g, of course. (perhaps he sent it directly to Eric or Zeyd, who would not necessarily forward them to me or to the mailing list). So I don't know what he's talking about. > I'm using 1.9.9g (plus my patches) and will leave it there. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sat May 31 22:45:57 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA07358 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 22:45:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id UAA20731 for ncurses-outgoing; Sat, 31 May 1997 20:40:56 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id UAA20727 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 20:40:52 -0600 (MDT) Received: from netcom15.netcom.com (zmbenhal@netcom15.netcom.com [192.100.81.128]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA19216 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 20:40:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from zmbenhal@localhost) by netcom15.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id TAA10923; Sat, 31 May 1997 19:40:44 -0700 Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 19:40:44 -0700 From: zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199706010240.TAA10923@netcom15.netcom.com> To: cfm@maine.com, esr@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1469 Lines: 34 >Christopher Miller writes: >> Speaking of which, is there an alternative like passing on the overall >> stewardship to someone **like** cygnus, caldera, gnu, etc...? Some >> organization with a track record in managing talented and strong >> personalities? > >I have already said that I am willing to see the primary maintainer >role passed to a safe third party (and I don't think Zeyd would object >at this point, either, though I can't commit him on this). I certainly have no objections, as a matter of fact I asked for volunteers quite a while back after Thomas put out his 4.0 simply to avoid the situation. >I actually asked Keith Bostic (the former 4.4BSD maintainer and a strong >supporter of this project) to take over six months ago, in an >effort to avoid this confrontation. He wouldn't do it, for which >I can't say I blame him. Nor do I. I simply don't have the time to argue with Tom. His diatribe (disguised as the "History of ncurses") on his page is the last straw. >I don't want to maintain ncurses for the rest of time. Technically, >the work I wanted to do on it is nearly accomplished. If some person >or organization of good repute wants to step up to the plate, I am >more than willing to cooperate for a smooth transition and orderly >transfer of rights. Eric hereby has my full support to take whatever actions feels warrented. It sad to see a project I was involved in since 1991 come down to this state of affairs. Sadly, Zeyd From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Sun Jun 1 21:29:09 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA05771 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:29:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id SAA10183; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 18:09:19 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020020.UAA23569@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:20:32 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199705302013.QAA30481@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at May 30, 97 04:13:02 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1751 Lines: 36 RMS: > Eric, could you tell me the specific things that Dickey did which you > think are wrong? If you prefer, you could tell just me, rather than > the whole list. That could avoid distracting harsh arguments. I want the whole list to know, if they don't already. He removed the names of Zeyd benHalim and myself from the maintainers' list with neither my consent nor the authority as senior maintainer to do so. He declared himself primary maintainer and issued distributions against the active protests of Zeyd benHalim (the most senior developer) and myself (the other copyright holder and senior developer, and in fact the person who put him on the developers' list to begin with). He refused to apply changes to the software which I submitted and considered important for performance -- changes to a portion of the code *I* had written and was responsible for (the vertical-motion optimizer). He has continually refused either to explain his actions or reverse them. He has responded to neither private email from me nor public pressure from others on the ncurses list. The trigger of my revocation of his privileges is that he has attempted to assert control of yet *another* project I hold in trust for the community, the termcap/terminfo database bequeathed to me by its BSD maintainer. These behaviors grossly violate the customs under which hackers normally cooperate. Mr. Dickey appears to have neither understanding nor interest in these customs. He has therefore forced me to means I find extraordinary and repugnant. I have been avoiding the issue, aside from occasional attempts to get him to respond to private email, for six months. I can avoid it no longer. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sun Jun 1 21:48:33 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA10623 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:48:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id TAA28353 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:41:53 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id TAA28349 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:41:47 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA26955 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:41:44 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA07284 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:37:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id VAA14834 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:38:25 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706020138.VAA14834@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:38:25 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199706020036.UAA23629@snark.thyrsus.com> from "Eric S. Raymond" at Jun 1, 97 08:36:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 4093 Lines: 113 > You want last twelve months? That's not too fair because Thomas's > intransigence drove me away in disgust for the last six months. But > I can fill your bill anyway. nope. He's quoting from work in 1995. > Let's talk about fixing the blasted cursor-movement optimizer so it > actually worked, and contributing a novel algorithm that optimizes normal > text-editor-like updates faster than even BSD's. ask Peter Wemm and Alexander - it was full of holes, did not work at all for terminals w/o hardware insert/delete line. The more recent "novel" algorithm generates lots more characters than the old one. > Let's talk about mouse support. sure. I've done as much work there. > Let's talk about compiled-in fallback types. ditto. > Let's talk about toe(1). why? (It's a trivial application that no one uses) > Let's talk about the ability to automatically fall back on a termcap file ugh. This is not something that you should boast of. > Let's talk about maintaining every single line of the god-damned > documentation, something nobody else on this project I've done a chunk of that. > Since your memory appears to be faulty, here is a summary of what I > have contributed since beginning work on ncurses in November 1993: contributed is too strong a word. he's implemented functions from a spec. > > The following entry points: > setterm(), wgetnstr(), ripoffline(), termattrs(), delay_output(), delay_output had the wrong prototype. wgetnstr didn't set the terminal modes properly. > wechochar(), addchstr(), addchnstr(), getwin(), putwin(), addchnstr was the one Alexander & I found recently - didn't work. > scr_dump(), scr_restore(), termname(), delscreen(), getparyx(), > notimeout(), wnotimeout(), mvderwin(), wcursyncup(), wsyncup(), > slk_attrset(), slk_attron(), slk_attroff(), idcok(), winchnstr(), Juergen's done work on the slk_ functions. > qiflush(), noqiflush(), winnstr(), immedok(), winsnstr(), intrflush(), intrflush doesn't work properly. > restartterm(), scr_set(), scr_init(), color_content(), wsyncdown(), > filter(). > > Critical fixes to the following programs and modules: > src/lib_getch.c, src/lib_vidattr.c, src/lib_getstr.c, src/lib_pad.c, > src/lib_doupdate.c, data/linux, src/lib_insdel.c, test/gdc.c. why, so have I. > * Hardware scrolling support with scroll-packing optimization. we're still fixing it > * Fast, cheap, *correct* cursor movement optimization. nope. > * capabilities ~msgr, tilde_glitch, insert_padding, generic_type, > no_pad_char, memory_above, memory_below, non_dest_scroll_region, > and hard_copy are now used properly. memory_above/memory_below was one of the things I fixed in January. I believe with hard_copy, he's referring to someone else's work. > * mouse support for xterm; the mouse interface design. it didn't "work" for 4 months. I've found more design defects during the past week while supporting Midnight Commander, and am not done with that. > Major programmer-visible new features: > * Added complete man pages. it helped to have the XSI spec to cut/paste from. > * Trace levels; greatly improved update tracing. Sorry. Most of the trace statements were in pcurses - all he did was apply a mask to the levels. > * The ncurses interactive tester. I've written half of that. > * The fallback-entry-list feature. > > I have also been responsible for the following: > * The ports to BSD/386 and SVr4. nope (when?). > * The code to handle deficient BSD select(2) nope. I did that last fall. > * Made configuration process work with old awk. nope. I did that. > * Rewritten configuration system. nope. I did that. > * Lots of compatibility testing against SVr4. nope. I did that. > Following the rewrite for termcap-fallback support, the code for tic(1) > is essentially all mine now. So is all the update-optimization code > other than the central TransformLine and PutChar/PutAttrChar machinery. uh, not really. lib_doupdate.c and lib_mvcur.c are not the work of one person. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sun Jun 1 21:56:38 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA12641 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:56:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id TAA28366 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:43:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id TAA28362 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:43:28 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA26983 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:43:24 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA08419 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:42:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id VAA15629 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:43:22 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706020143.VAA15629@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:43:22 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199706020039.UAA23643@snark.thyrsus.com> from "Eric S. Raymond" at Jun 1, 97 08:39:19 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 710 Lines: 16 > He *has* in fact effectively refused to accept my patches, by the sneaky > device of #ifdefing them out in the standard distrubition and providing > no configuration option with which to enable them. right. Alexander's been trying to make Eric's code work. I tested it again last night, and compared with my benchmark (700 chars) it generated 5000. I've tested it each time there's a change to hashmap.c, just in case it's finally been made to work. I have a hunch that if Alexander does get it to work, his effort will be wasted because Eric will claim all of the credit. That would be a shame, since Alexander's done some good work. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sun Jun 1 22:17:52 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA17736 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:17:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id UAA28877 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:11:56 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id UAA28873 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:11:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from qnx.com (qnx.com [198.53.31.1]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA28962 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:11:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by qnx.com (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA12450 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:12:17 -0400 Message-Id: <199706020212.WAA12450@qnx.com> X-Authentication-Warning: qnx.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Free Software Date: Sun, 01 Jun 1997 22:12:14 -0400 From: Michael Hunter Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 548 Lines: 15 One of the cool things about a free market economy is that this type of bickering can be answered by the users. While I believe the market really doesn't need two competeing ncurses, in the long run it probably wouldn't be harmful. As far as ESR's legal claims those are strictly between ESR and TD. ESR, if you want to take TD to court, just do it, don't threaten. May the best software win and may both attempts shower heaps of fall out on the user community. mph -- * Michael Hunter (mphunter@qnx.com, http://www.qnx.com/~mphunter) From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sun Jun 1 22:51:22 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA25990 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:51:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id UAA29212 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:40:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id UAA29208 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:40:40 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA01264 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:40:35 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id WAA24912; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:45:01 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020245.WAA24912@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: dickey@clark.net (T.E.Dickey) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:45:00 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706020143.VAA15629@explorer2.clark.net> from "T.E.Dickey" at Jun 1, 97 09:43:22 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 477 Lines: 10 Thomas bloviates: > I have a hunch that if Alexander does get it to work, his effort will be > wasted because Eric will claim all of the credit. That would be a shame, > since Alexander's done some good work. If he fixes a real bug, Alexander is more than welcome to add his name on that code. I sure won't remove it. In fact, if I like his patch to my code, I'll add his name myself. *Just like I added yours* -- Eric S. Raymond From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Sun Jun 1 22:55:14 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA26832 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:55:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id XAA24984; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:00:32 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020300.XAA24984@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: dickey@clark.net (T.E.Dickey) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:00:32 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706020138.VAA14834@explorer2.clark.net> from "T.E.Dickey" at Jun 1, 97 09:38:25 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 573 Lines: 13 > nope. He's quoting from work in 1995. I've got the dates on all my patch files, from #1 (long before you were on the project) to the most recent. The trustworthiness of *your* chronology may be accurately assessced by Zeyd's public description of it as a sickening diatribe. As for the rest of your peroration about my efforts, I think I'll forgo the petty pleasure of responding myself and let Zeyd if he so desires (he did say "write me if you need more ammo"). I'm certain you won't enjoy the results. -- Eric S. Raymond From 06162912249-0001@t-online.de Mon Jun 2 00:04:04 1997 Received: from mailout05.btx.dtag.de (mailout05.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.153]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id AAA12287 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:04:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fwd01.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.161] by mailout05.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 0wYOKi-0006KL-00; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 06:03:00 +0200 Received: from tower (06162912249-0001(btxid)@[194.25.3.27]) by fwd01.btx.dtag.de with smtp (S3.1.29.1) id ; Mon, 2 Jun 97 06:02 MET DST Message-ID: <339245C4.8A972C19@T-Online.de> Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 06:02:12 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Eric S. Raymond" CC: "T.E.Dickey" , ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199706020300.XAA24984@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Status: RO Content-Length: 2458 Lines: 62 Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > nope. He's quoting from work in 1995. > > I've got the dates on all my patch files, from #1 (long before you > were on the project) to the most recent. The trustworthiness of > *your* chronology may be accurately assessced by Zeyd's public > description of it as a sickening diatribe. > > As for the rest of your peroration about my efforts, I think I'll > forgo the petty pleasure of responding myself and let Zeyd if he so > desires (he did say "write me if you need more ammo"). I'm certain > you won't enjoy the results. > -- > Eric S. Raymond Maybe, but only looking at the tiny part of your big list I know exactly: the wsync... stuff in lib_windows.c was totally broken. The same was true with copywin(). You're right, you or somebody else hacked it in, but when I looked at it I had the impression that most of that was done without really understanding how things work together. I rewrote all this stuff completely. Actually my name is still in the sources in the comments. I guess Thomas is right: just implemented following a spec. And all of that are important functions for advanced curses apps like menu and form are. Finally the 1.9.8 release with those last minute hacks wasn't working. That's not a sign of seniority. Nevertheless I'll continue to honour all the valuable contributions you made and hopefully will make to ncurses. Without any doubt a lot of good stuff. If you only would test your code as seriously as Thomas does it... I've several mails in my folders from last December when Zeyd asked Thomas to get his snapshots because Zeyd hadn't kept all the patches Thomas was the one doing all this. Zeyd said that he want's to see a 4.0 release ASAP. But then - lets say as usual in the last two years - he simply disappeared. If someone unbiased would read this mails I'm quite sure that he would interpret this as a "go, do it your own, I'm no longer interested". A totally different story is the removal of your name from the maintainers list. You may remeber that I told the public that I don't agree to remove your name if you don't like that. That's still my position. You should be in the list and Thomas should be the one coordinating releases, because I still believe he's doing an excellent job. But as far as I understand that's not what you want. You want to have control and all the others should do the work. Cheers Juergen From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Jun 2 00:05:07 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id AAA13049; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:05:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id AAA15831; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:05:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:05:27 -0400 Message-Id: <199706020405.AAA15831@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman too: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com to: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <199706020036.UAA23629@snark.thyrsus.com> (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 References: <199706020036.UAA23629@snark.thyrsus.com> Status: RO Content-Length: 1476 Lines: 31 I *never* gave consent for the rogue 4.0 to be issued. Nor did Zeyd. Free software means that everyone is allowed to release a modified version; no one needs to ask for consent from someone else. Each group working on a separate version is entitled to decide who is in their group. They can include a "list of maintainers" which consists of them and them alone. They don't have to include the people in a different group who are maintaining a separate version. Denying credit to the people who have worked on the program in the past is clearly wrong (whether it is legal or not). But the list of current maintainers is not (necessarily) the same as the list of people who have contributed in the past. So changing the list of current maintainers is not (necessarily) denying credit to anyone; not if something else in the release gives credit. (I don't know whether Dickey's release does contain something else to give credit to ESR and others; but if it does not, adding it cannot be very hard.) So all I can say about the actions ESR has just now described is that they are not illegal as far as I know, and not clearly wrong as far as I can see. They are the kind of things people do when there is a dispute. They show that there is a dispute, but they don't help understand the origin of the dispute or how to resolve it. I don't know how things came to this pass, or who could have done what to avoid it. I hope ESR and Dickey can bury the hatchet. From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Mon Jun 2 00:47:10 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id AAA24663 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:47:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id AAA25707; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:52:20 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:52:20 -0400 (EDT) Cc: dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <339245C4.8A972C19@T-Online.de> from "Juergen Pfeifer" at Jun 2, 97 06:02:12 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 1849 Lines: 43 > But as far as I understand that's > not what you want. You want to have control and all the others should do the > work. Hello? Juergen? Have you been paying attention? OK, I'll say it a fourth time.... I DO NOT WANT TO CONTROL THIS SOFTWARE. What I want is: (a) for Thomas Dickey *not* to control it, because he hijacked it (ask Zeyd) and is not trustworthy on what I consider vital matters; (b) for the usual free-software community customs regarding credits, cooperation, and the rights of maintainers and authors to be observed. I'd be happy for someone else that I trust to "control" things. I would assign my copyright to said trustworthy person. How many times do I have to explain this before it sinks in? Would you like me to say it again? Yeesh.... As a matter of fact I was thinking of *you* as one of the prime candidates. I was hoping you'd step forward after my first post. That's right. *You*. In spite of your fantasy that Thomas's hijacking was somehow consented to by myself and Zeyd (I hope Zeyd's last post has cleared the fog from your mind on that issue). You were wrong about that, and you're very damn wrong about me above. But your contributions have been major (otherwise I wouldn't have put your name where it is in the credits). You strike me as hardworking, honest, and very conscientious (if a bit deluded). After a suitable (and short) probationary period, I would not at all mind handing you the maintainer's baton. (And Zeyd has just said in public that he would support any action I chose to take in this matter.) Now. Can we at least dispose of the fiction that I'm some kind of control-freak monster out to control without contributing? Not even Thomas has behaved *that* badly... -- Eric S. Raymond From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Jun 2 01:18:41 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id BAA00177 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:18:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id BAA16506; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:18:59 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:18:59 -0400 Message-Id: <199706020518.BAA16506@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: esr@snark.thyrsus.com CC: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 References: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> Status: RO Content-Length: 1261 Lines: 32 What I want is: (a) for Thomas Dickey *not* to control it, There is some ambiguity in the word "it". If ncurses is free software, that means that Dickey (or anyone else) is entitled to make his own version and control it. However, you can continue to develop and release your version, and no one but you can control that. So if "it" refers to ncurses in general, who controls it? No one. No one can control a free program in this sense. Therefore, it seems to me that what you want is already true. (b) for the usual free-software community customs regarding credits, cooperation, and the rights of maintainers and authors to be observed. For free software, the rights of maintainers is this: each person has the right to maintain his own version. As far as I know, Dickey has done nothing to deny you that right. I am not sure what "rights of authors" refers to, in connection with a free program. I think you will have to explain more specifically what you mean. I see that cooperation has broken down between you and Dickey; I don't know how that happened, but it is regrettable, and I hope it can be revived. But this is not something that you (or Dickey) can demand; all one can do regarding cooperation is offer and invite it. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 01:30:02 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA01817 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:30:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id XAA00277 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:24:23 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id XAA00273 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:24:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA12449 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:24:17 -0600 (MDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id BAA16524; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:24:13 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:24:13 -0400 Message-Id: <199706020524.BAA16524@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 References: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 448 Lines: 13 I am interested in hearing from the views of additional people other than ESR and Dickey as to * Whether Dickey is doing a good job, for the community, in maintaining his version of ncurses. * Whether ESR has released substantial changes to ncurses recently (since Dickey began maintaining a version of it). * Whether Dickey has been willing to accept changes when ESR writes them. * Whether you think Dickey has done anything wrong or unfair. From jasone@leo.mrc.uidaho.edu Mon Jun 2 02:06:56 1997 Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA07615 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 02:06:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id XAA28513; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:06:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans Reply-To: Jason Evans To: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu, ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Continuing ncurses development Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 1659 Lines: 39 Even after all of the email sent out by Eric Raymond and Thomas Dickey, it is still not clear to me why there has been such a breakdown, and downright fight over ncurses. The state of affairs between Raymond and Dickey is disappointing. However, as a bystander, it is not my main concern. What is concerning to me is how unfree the supposedly free ncurses is. Raymond has demonstrated his willingness to retract his free, mostly unrestrictive license. Given the uncertainty of the future of ncurses, I am reluctant to contribute to the ongoing development. I see two possible solutions to the problem: 1) Get all of the major contributors of ncurses (Eric Raymond, Zeyd Ben-Halim, Thomas Dickey, Juergen Pfeifer, and anyone else I missed) to assign their copyrights to a third party, under an undoubtedly free copyright (such as Berkeley style or GPL). The FSF would in my opinion be a good candidate. 2) Start from scratch and make sure it's free this time. This would be an unfortunate waste of a lot of existing good work. Though it is my opinion that Raymond does not have a legal leg to stand on, I would not want to defend my position in court. Therefore, I find Raymond's demonstration of willingness to prosecute a big enough deterrent to drop further development of the current ncurses, unless he (and the other parties involved) somehow guarantees that his contribution will remain unequivocably free. Sincerely, Jason Evans Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 03:15:41 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id DAA16418 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 03:15:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id BAA00787 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:05:11 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id BAA00783 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:05:07 -0600 (MDT) Received: from cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (qmailr@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu [131.252.30.67]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA17923 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:05:03 -0600 (MDT) Received: (qmail 12611 invoked by uid 11105); 2 Jun 1997 07:01:42 -0000 To: ncurses@bsdi.com Cc: Richard Stallman Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 References: <199706020452.AAA25707@snark.thyrsus.com> <199706020524.BAA16524@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: 02 Jun 1997 00:01:42 -0700 In-Reply-To: Richard Stallman's message of Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:24:13 -0400 Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1637 Lines: 38 >>>>> "RMS" == Richard Stallman writes: RMS> I am interested in hearing from the views of additional people RMS> other than ESR and Dickey as to RMS> * Whether Dickey is doing a good job, for the community, in RMS> maintaining his version of ncurses. With the few problems I've encountered with ncurses, Thomas Dickey has responded in minutes with fixes or suggestions. RMS> * Whether ESR has released substantial changes to ncurses RMS> recently (since Dickey began maintaining a version of it). RMS> * Whether Dickey has been willing to accept changes when ESR RMS> writes them. The name `Eric' occurs 42 times in the NEWS file. This says to me the answer is yes on both counts. RMS> * Whether you think Dickey has done anything wrong or unfair. If Dickey is not being honest about who contributes what (there are many attributions in the NEWS file, including the names "Eric" and "Zeyd"), he is being mighty subtle about it. Assuming Dickey is being honest, essentially what he is `guility' of is disregard for the the seniority of now-secondary contributors. Since Juergen Pfeifer's name occurs 40 times in the NEWS file (and for goodness sake, several of his items are *modules*, e.g. forms library, menu code), relatively speaking, I don't see a reason to be suspicious about the fact Juergen Pfeifer being listed as a maintainer (Eric and Zeyd are still both listed as authors). With The Truth, good name-recognition, years of experience, and the help of another sympathetic and experienced ncurses developer, one would think Eric Raymond could easily assert control of the ncurses project.... From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 05:01:17 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA28104 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 05:01:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id CAA01184 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 02:58:04 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id CAA01180 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 02:57:59 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA24535 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 02:57:57 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id EAA27659; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 04:57:23 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id EAA17857; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 04:57:55 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706020857.EAA17857@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: Continuing ncurses development To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 04:57:55 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at Jun 1, 97 11:06:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 867 Lines: 19 > Even after all of the email sent out by Eric Raymond and Thomas Dickey, it > is still not clear to me why there has been such a breakdown, and > downright fight over ncurses. There's a lot of issues involved. I made the 1.9.9g and 4.0 releases not because I had intended making releases (I'd told more than one person that my goal for the betas was to prevent another debacle such as 1.9.9e), but in response to blackmail by Eric (he demanded that I make a release so that he could get the "kudos" - his word - which he deserved, or he'd take it away and take all the credit for himself - that was on the mailing list in November). Given that I was doing the ongoing maintenance, the only way I would do a release would be as primary maintainer - which I've been doing for more than a year. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Mon Jun 2 04:57:55 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: Continuing ncurses development To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 04:57:55 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at Jun 1, 97 11:06:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 867 Lines: 19 > Even after all of the email sent out by Eric Raymond and Thomas Dickey, it > is still not clear to me why there has been such a breakdown, and > downright fight over ncurses. There's a lot of issues involved. I made the 1.9.9g and 4.0 releases not because I had intended making releases (I'd told more than one person that my goal for the betas was to prevent another debacle such as 1.9.9e), but in response to blackmail by Eric (he demanded that I make a release so that he could get the "kudos" - his word - which he deserved, or he'd take it away and take all the credit for himself - that was on the mailing list in November). Given that I was doing the ongoing maintenance, the only way I would do a release would be as primary maintainer - which I've been doing for more than a year. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 05:23:44 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA00722 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 05:23:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id DAA01315 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 03:13:36 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id DAA01311 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 03:13:32 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA25204 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 03:13:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: from explorer2.clark.net (dickey@explorer2.clark.net [168.143.0.5]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA29442; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 05:12:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by explorer2.clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id FAA19745; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 05:13:29 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706020913.FAA19745@explorer2.clark.net> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 05:13:29 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: <339245C4.8A972C19@T-Online.de> from "Juergen Pfeifer" at Jun 2, 97 06:02:12 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 3204 Lines: 70 > Maybe, but only looking at the tiny part of your big list I know > exactly: > the wsync... stuff in lib_windows.c was totally broken. The same was right. I didn't mention that because I was uncertain who'd broken it. I forgot to mention winnstr - didn't work (I ran into that a couple of months ago, applied a fix which Juergen in turn corrected). > true with copywin(). You're right, you or somebody else hacked it in, > but when I looked at it I had the impression that most of that was done > without really understanding how things work together. I rewrote all > this > stuff completely. Actually my name is still in the sources in the > comments. > I guess Thomas is right: just implemented following a spec. And all of > that > are important functions for advanced curses apps like menu and form are. I'd have more to say here, but most of those functions are not tested anywhere in the examples, and my testing has been focused on the update and optimization logic - so I'd find it likely that other functions are incorrect. > Finally the 1.9.8 release with those last minute hacks wasn't working. > That's not a sign of seniority. right : 1.9.7a, 1.9.8a were fixup releases since 1.9.7 and 1.9.8 didn't work. > Nevertheless I'll continue to honour all the valuable contributions you > made and hopefully will make to ncurses. Without any doubt a lot of > good stuff. If you only would test your code as seriously as Thomas > does it... I wish he did. I could take him more seriously in that case. > I've several mails in my folders from last December when Zeyd asked > Thomas to get his snapshots because Zeyd hadn't kept all the patches > Thomas was the one doing all this. Zeyd said that he want's to > see a 4.0 release ASAP. But then - lets say as usual in the last two > years - > he simply disappeared. If someone unbiased would read this mails I'm > quite sure that he would interpret this as a "go, do it your own, I'm no > > longer interested". That was my impression - I thought I had a consensus. > A totally different story is the removal of your name from the > maintainers > list. You may remeber that I told the public that I don't agree to > remove > your name if you don't like that. That's still my position. You should I believe that the disagreement over the term "primary maintainer" is something that's due to very different interpretations by me and Eric. Eric (in one of his last emails a few months ago) made it clear that he did not associate the term with the development process, but rather as as hybrid of manager and salesman. (Since he wasn't doing the bulk of development/integration/testing last year, I can see that if those were prerequisites, then he'd have to decline the honor). I could be persuaded differently by a rational discussion, but I've gotten nothing of the sort from Eric. > be in > the list and Thomas should be the one coordinating releases, because I > still > believe he's doing an excellent job. But as far as I understand that's > not what > you want. You want to have control and all the others should do the > work. That's exactly the way I see it. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 12:26:58 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA09585 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:26:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id KAA04514 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id KAA04510 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:45 -0600 (MDT) Received: from relay3.UU.NET (relay3.UU.NET [192.48.96.8]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA17751 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:43 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com by relay3.UU.NET with ESMTP (peer crosschecked as: locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) id QQcsfg05154; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:12:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id KAA28192; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:30:46 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706021430.KAA28192@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:30:46 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199706020518.BAA16506@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at Jun 2, 97 01:18:59 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 2164 Lines: 43 > If ncurses is free software, that means that Dickey (or anyone else) > is entitled to make his own version and control it. > > However, you can continue to develop and release your version, and > no one but you can control that. > > So if "it" refers to ncurses in general, who controls it? No one. > No one can control a free program in this sense. Under your GPL, this is technically true. However, hacker-community custom forbids copying someone else's live project and haring off with it in a different direction. There are several good reasons for this, including avoiding duplication of work and preserving authors' perceived right to control the representation of work in which their reputation is invested. Accordingly, the community tries hard to avoid having multiple parallel developments of the same code going on. To prevent the kinds of unresolvable clashes that would lead to project groups fissioning all the time, there are informal but strong customs which amount to giving authors a kind of homesteaders' property right over a particular corner of free software's coonceptual space; a right they may pass, delegate or share with others but which outsiders will feel social pressure not to infringe. This right, in the case of old and well-established projects, can be very strong. It's pretty hard to imagine anybody forking most of the GNU utilities, for example, even though GPL technically permits this. The community would blow them off; it would not accept the results. Accordingly, there is a fairly well-defined notion of "primary maintainer" for a project; the "primary maintainer" is the person who holds the hacker community's trust to steer a project. There are responsibilities associated with this position, and it can be compromised or lost (the trust can be eroded or destroyed entirely) if the holder fails to fulfil them. What I am trying to show is that Thomas Dickey (a) never legitimately became the ncurses's project primary maintainer under generally recognized custom, and (b) has failed in the ethical responsibilities of a project maintainer. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 12:25:29 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA09058 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:25:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id KAA04488 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:10:35 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id KAA04484 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:10:24 -0600 (MDT) Received: from relay3.UU.NET (relay3.UU.NET [192.48.96.8]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA17642 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:10:22 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com by relay3.UU.NET with ESMTP (peer crosschecked as: locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) id QQcsfg04538; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:10:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id KAA28223; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:38:10 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706021438.KAA28223@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:38:10 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199706020524.BAA16524@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at Jun 2, 97 01:24:13 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 845 Lines: 19 RMS: > * Whether ESR has released substantial changes to ncurses recently > (since Dickey began maintaining a version of it). The other questions are fair. This one is not. Thomas Dickey's disgusting behavior drove me off the project six months ago. The proper question would be what significant contributions I made in the six months or so before the hijacking when I was still actively contributing. If you like, I will mail you my last six months of patches to the ncurses source tree. I still have them all. I should have gone to war the day Mr. Dickey hijacked the project. I allowed myself to be dissuaded by the advice of others. As a result, I was effectively paralyzed until he compounded the offence last week by asserting control of yet *another* of my projects. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 12:24:00 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA08244 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:23:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id KAA04501 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:35 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id KAA04497 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: from relay3.UU.NET (relay3.UU.NET [192.48.96.8]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA17745 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:12:29 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com by relay3.UU.NET with ESMTP (peer crosschecked as: locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) id QQcsfg05083; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:12:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id KAA28340; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:44:59 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706021444.KAA28340@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: Continuing ncurses development To: dickey@clark.net (T.E.Dickey) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:44:58 -0400 (EDT) Cc: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu, ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706020857.EAA17857@explorer2.clark.net> from "T.E.Dickey" at Jun 2, 97 04:57:55 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 623 Lines: 12 > There's a lot of issues involved. I made the 1.9.9g and 4.0 releases > not because I had intended making releases (I'd told more than one person > that my goal for the betas was to prevent another debacle such as 1.9.9e), > but in response to blackmail by Eric (he demanded that I make a release > so that he could get the "kudos" - his word - which he deserved, or he'd > take it away and take all the credit for himself - that was on the mailing > list in November). This is an outright lie, and I challenger you to produce any mail that substantiates it. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 12:49:37 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA18905 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:49:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id KAA04730 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:42:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id KAA04726 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:42:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA19827 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:42:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: from clark.net (dickey@explorer.clark.net [168.143.0.7]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA15906; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:42:11 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id MAA04645; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:42:39 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706021642.MAA04645@clark.net> Subject: Re: Continuing ncurses development To: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:42:37 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: <199706021444.KAA28340@snark.thyrsus.com> from "Eric S. Raymond" at Jun 2, 97 10:44:58 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 773 Lines: 19 > > > There's a lot of issues involved. I made the 1.9.9g and 4.0 releases > > not because I had intended making releases (I'd told more than one person > > that my goal for the betas was to prevent another debacle such as 1.9.9e), > > but in response to blackmail by Eric (he demanded that I make a release > > so that he could get the "kudos" - his word - which he deserved, or he'd > > take it away and take all the credit for himself - that was on the mailing > > list in November). > > This is an outright lie, and I challenger you to produce any mail that > substantiates it. my back email is at home; I'll send it to you this evening. which part of the above statement do you disagree with? -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 13:28:37 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA05828 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:28:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id LAA05253 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:16:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id LAA05249 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:16:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from catapult.va.pubnix.com (catapult.va.pubnix.com [208.211.134.20]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA22039 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:16:23 -0600 (MDT) Received: by catapult.va.pubnix.com id NAA09339; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:16:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:16:06 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: From: David J MacKenzie To: "Eric S. Raymond" Cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman), ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 In-Reply-To: Eric S. Raymond's message of Mon, 2 June 1997 10:30:46 -0400 <199706021430.KAA28192@snark.thyrsus.com> References: <199706020518.BAA16506@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <199706021430.KAA28192@snark.thyrsus.com> X-Tom-Swiftie: "Ed is the Standard Text Editor," Tom sed. Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 685 Lines: 19 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:30:46 -0400 (EDT), "Eric S. Raymond" said: > Under your GPL, this is technically true. > However, hacker-community custom forbids copying someone else's live > project and haring off with it in a different direction. . . . > This right, in the case of old and well-established projects, can be > very strong. It's pretty hard to imagine anybody forking most of the > GNU utilities, for example, even though GPL technically permits this. > The community would blow them off; it would not accept the results. Lucid Emacs Apache HTTPD Linux Libc WU FTPD various gcc and gdb mutants No opinions attached, these just come to mind . . . . From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 15:51:07 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA03066 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:51:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id NAA06467 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:38:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id NAA06463 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:38:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA01944 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:38:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from clark.net (dickey@explorer.clark.net [168.143.0.7]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA28278; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:38:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id PAA22905; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:38:43 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199706021938.PAA22905@clark.net> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: kaz@cafe.net (Kaz Kylheku) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:38:42 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: from "Kaz Kylheku" at Jun 2, 97 12:22:55 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 297 Lines: 9 > The question is whether Tom has a right to do that. If the ncurses guys To paraphrase: the question is whether Eric or Zeyd have the right to distribute my changes (more than a third of the changes to the ncurses library). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Mon Jun 2 15:38:42 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: kaz@cafe.net (Kaz Kylheku) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:38:42 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: from "Kaz Kylheku" at Jun 2, 97 12:22:55 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 297 Lines: 9 > The question is whether Tom has a right to do that. If the ncurses guys To paraphrase: the question is whether Eric or Zeyd have the right to distribute my changes (more than a third of the changes to the ncurses library). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 19:05:38 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA17006 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:05:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA04879; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:58:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <33934732.549C6E79@T-Online.de> Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 00:20:35 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com CC: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199706022110.RAA21396@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2763 Lines: 66 Richard Stallman wrote: > I just checked the ncurses distribution terms, and was very surprised: > > they *do not* give permission for distribution of modified versions. > > I had assumed ncurses was free software because "everyone knew" it". > I was under the impression that ncurses was derived from some BSD > software and was distributed under the same terms as BSD. I should > have checked the distribution terms when the FSF first considered > distributing ncurses. I am sorry I failed to do that. > > Unfortunately, this means that ncurses is not free software. > The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that > the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. > > As a result, it is indeed forbidden for Dickey, or any of us, to > distribute modified versions. So I deleted ncurses 4.1 from prep. > Arghhh!!! At least that's not what's my intention with ncurses. > I also deleted the other versions of ncurses from prep, because the > FSF exists to develop and distribute free software only. Distributing > > a non-free program, even if legally permitted, does not advance our > mission. For my personal taste that's a bit too religious... > The free software community is now in a hole. We need a good free > curses package for free operating systems, and the one we thought we > had, we do not have. I can see three possible ways we can come up > with one: > > * ESR and Zeyd together can agree to permit distribution of modified > versions and thus make ncurses free software. > > * Someone can write a new program which is free software. Perhaps > some of Dickey's code, and other recent contributors' code, can be > used as part of this. > > * There may be another good alternative, or at least one that is > better than nothing. Does anyone know? > > The first way is best. Perhaps it is possible. ESR spoke of > transferring ncurses to the FSF. If both ESR and Zeyd are willing to > say yes to this, and understand that we would have to change the > distribution terms and thus make ncurses free software, then the FSF > will say yes to it. But you should be aware that Eric and Zeyd are not the only persons holding copyrights on what's in ncurses. I personally would follow your suggestion and handover all my copyrights to FSF or any other third party that want's to take over ncurses to resolve the current problems. I would also like to maintain the code I've written and continue to repair what's broken in the core library. I would also like to still see my name in the product. The most critical point might be that people are confused about the rights they have to use GPLed software in commercial products. This topic seems to be a never ending thread in various newsgroups. Juergen From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 19:53:44 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA02277 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:53:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id RAA08455 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:49:49 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAA08451 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:49:38 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA18678 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:49:34 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA02040; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:46:04 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706022346.TAA02040@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: dickey@clark.net (T.E.Dickey) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:46:04 -0400 (EDT) Cc: kaz@cafe.net, ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706021938.PAA22905@clark.net> from "T.E.Dickey" at Jun 2, 97 03:38:42 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 443 Lines: 13 Dickey: > To paraphrase: the question is whether Eric or Zeyd have the right to > distribute my changes (more than a third of the changes to the ncurses > library). Paybacks are a bitch, aren't they? You hijacked the project from the copyright holders. Now you'll pay for that act by losing control of the work you invested. How appropriate. Let the punishment fit the crime. -- Eric S. Raymond From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Wed Jun 4 12:47:03 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA28799 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 12:46:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA02274; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:00:55 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706030000.UAA02274@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:00:54 -0400 (EDT) Cc: kaz@cafe.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at Jun 2, 97 03:14:16 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 1008 Lines: 20 > Well, we've gone full circle now. Kaz, you're accusing Thomas of > retracting redistribution rights from Eric and Zeyd. If you recall back > a few days, that's exactly what Eric's intention was (and apparently > still is). Why are you so bent out of shape about Thomas doing it (even > though he didn't actually make a statement of intent to retract any > rights), yet applaud Eric, when he explicitly did exactly what you accuse > Thomas of? Kaz's point is subtler than that. He's chosen an amusing way to point out that Thomas can't object to Zeyd and myself distributing "his" code without torpedoing himself. And there it would end, in a deadlock, if it weren't for the fact that Zeyd and I are copyright holders and Thomas is not. As RMS correctly points out, and Kaz has established in detail, this means *our* desires in the matter trump Thomas's in the eyes of the law. Happily, this coincides with the ethics of the situation. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 20:15:59 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA10138 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:15:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id RAA09911; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:06:11 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706030010.UAA02320@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:10:31 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <9706022309.AA27117@regulus.krl.caltech.edu> from "charles@krl.caltech.edu" at Jun 2, 97 04:09:22 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 788 Lines: 19 Charles: > Eric, would you care if other people took over ncurses as long as they > changed the name? Then you can keep the 'original' ncurses and there would > simply be a split. You can find someone competent to take control of your > distribution.... I don't need to keep ncurses if I can release it to a successor I trust. And I don't want there to be a split for reasons I've gone into. But I *will not* allow any derivative of my code to remain under Thomas Dickey's usurping authority, and that is final and not negotiable. He's still under threat of being sued or jailed for copyright violation under the Berne Convention if he tries, and I'm not kidding about that. I am certain Zeyd will back me 100% on this. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 09:09:11 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA01900 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 09:09:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id BAA27226; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 01:03:14 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 03:52:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek X-Sender: ac199@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? In-Reply-To: <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 7392 Lines: 176 On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: [...] > The simplest solution to RMS's problem would be to hand ncurses to the > FSF and GPL it. At some future time, the present copyright holders > may be willing to do that. Right now I have reservations about > the LGPL which are not relevant to any of the ncurses issues but > which are fairly strong; these foreclose the simple solution for > the present. Let's try not to forget the immediate problem, either... [...] > RMS's position, the one the FSF is founded on and the GPL promotes, is > that software is "free" only if its license grants unlimited rights > (a) to reuse, (b) to redistribute, (c) to modify for personal use, and > (d) to modify and then redistribute. As a member of said community free software community, I must disagree with you by saying that "free" includes d) permission to modify and redistribute. By permitting modification and redistribution the software can be used in more ways. Parts can be ripped-out by enterprising young hackers to use in their own projects (with proper credits, of course), and projects can be forked. Once again, let me point out that forked projects are not necessarily bad. Consider gcc and pgcc. By forking from standard gcc, the pgcc group was able to develop the pentium-optimized gcc. The original gcc then benefits as patches from pgcc improve it. By analagy, to go from point A to points B and C, everyone must initially start at the same place on the same road (point A) but in time, they must split-up, since they have different final destinations. [...] > >The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that > >the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. > > I disagree. I say this requirement does not reflect common usage of > the term "free software". Nor is it necessarily correct (these being I disagree. [...] > In general, if community aims are advanced by software that doesn't > happen to be GPLed but is under a sufficiently liberal license, the > Linux/BSD crowd will be happy to call it "free software" and keep > right on hacking. And the ncurses license is sufficiently liberal. The heart of the *BSD crowd very rarily considers GPL software to be "free software". A license that is more restrictive yet is even more unlikely to be considered free. > In fact, the only significant group that will be unable to use ncurses > is the FSF itself. Kind of ironic if you think about it. Hehe. As primary maintainer, this would be your loss of reputation. [..] > The FSF regards the "freeness" of software as an end in itself -- in > the FSF view, *all* software should be free and "unfree" software is > morally tainted. Their efforts tend to assume the grim, high-minded air > of a religious or political crusade, all clenched fists and barricades. This is a slightly simplistic analysis. Why do the want (their specific brand) of "free" to exist? Are the reasons really that different from those of Linus (for example)? Is it just maybe that they take a more hardline stance, but are fundamentaly similar if not the same? > The Linux/BSD community's stance is more instrumental. In this view, > the purpose of free software is to make sure hackers and other people > will always have enough tools and toys to play with. And the purpose > of the free-software culture is to have lots of fun, push the > technical envelope, and play a non-zero-sum reputation game that > everyone can win. You argue in favour of forced anti-fork licenses, yet you admit that the purpose of the free-software culture is to have lots of fun. What if I want to take ncurses in a different direction philosophically (technically, not politically)? The only way to do that is to a) split, or b) convince you to follow that technical philosophy. What if, further, this is a little-tested philosophy that you don't trust, but which does have potential. The only way for me to have my "fun" is going to be to fork the ncurses distribution, but your license will prevent me from doing that. I will no longer have fun, and I will not contribute. Everyone loses (even you, since patches brought over from my yancurses could have improved ncurses). You would probably argue that this forked distribution is unacceptable, because you will lose credit for your work on ncurses. I disagree. 1) By empirical evidance, the work done by the NetBSD group is not diminished in the eyes of the world simply because an OpenBSD group exists. 2) your ncurses still exists. 3) Your license on ncurses (which you've presumably changed to allow forks by this time :) says that I must give credit for your work, but not put you in a position where you are seen as being at fault for bugs in my yancurses. Finally, I think it's time to properly distinguish between "hijacking" and "forking". Following your lead, those who hijack software projects are taking credit (or reputation) for themselves that they have not earned or have not been allowed to take. Forking can be done because a group has grown to large to properly co-operate (or, as a prominant FreeBSD user would argue, doesn't have the organizational infrastructure to accomodate all those who wish to contribute), because of different technical philosophies, or for other reasons altogether. I will note that, regardless of the specific goal of a fork, the other benefits will also be incidental. Of the most popular licenses, widely regarded in the hacker community as "free", the BSD-style license, and the GPL, both are careful to prohibit software hijacking. Both, however, permit forked distributions. [...] > But anybody can play that game. RMS is no more privileged at it > than I am. He can argue for his restrictions, I can argue for mine, > and whether you buy my definition of "free software" or his depends > on what *you* want to accomplish by promoting "free software". And, for the record, what are you trying to accomplish? Linux-like goals of "fun"? Just reputation? There are a myriad of possible goals, and 99% of them do overlap between FSF, Linux, and *BSD. [...] > The problem is that if "free software" includes a right to > redistribute modified copies, the optimal strategy is hijacking and > parasitism, not being original and productive. And the culture > doesn't want that. The culture doesn't want it, hence it is no longer the optimal strategy. Don't forget, either, that the license you choose can discourage (if not prohibit) hijackings. [restated again in response to the next quote] [...] > Even then it's frowned upon, and for the norms to be satisfied it has > to be accompanied by extensive public self-justification (this > explains apparent exceptions like XEmacs and the BSD splitoffs that > actually prove the rule). But, by prohibiting forks with hijacks, you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Extensive public self-justification is used to show that a given group is "forking" and not "hijacking". For reasons you outline, any perceived hijacking on their part will hurt them. The goal, as far as the copyright holder is considered, is to choose a license which will prohibit or at least discourage hijacking. This license, in addition to the attitute of the hacker community can I believe do a good job of prevent hijackings. -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 04:51:18 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id EAA12786 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 04:51:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id BAA01286; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 01:41:43 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? References: <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> From: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: 03 Jun 1997 01:37:56 -0700 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message of Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:39:48 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1849 Lines: 49 >>>>> "ESR" == Eric S Raymond writes: ESR> The Linux/BSD community's stance is more instrumental. In this ESR> view, the purpose of free software is to make sure hackers and ESR> other people will always have enough tools and toys to play with. ESR> And the purpose of the free-software culture is to have lots of ESR> fun, push the technical envelope, and play a non-zero-sum ESR> reputation game that everyone can win. Fair enough. Let's take a look at what some important Linux people are saying about this ncurses issue. To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org, Michael Alan Dorman Subject: Re: ncurses back on hold... From: bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens) Date: Fri, 30 May 97 11:20 PDT Reply-To: Bruce Perens Any new work I do will use slang rather than ncurses. Bruce To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org Subject: ncurses package orphaned... From: Michael Alan Dorman Date: 30 May 1997 15:29:30 -0400 Debian developers: ESR has, IMHO, decided to start a pissing match about ncurses development. I have no desire to participate or watch. My frank recommendation is that we ditch ncurses entirely, go back to BSD curses and termcap and encourage authors of free packages to use slang. I enclose my latest set of diffs against 4.1, in case someone here's sucker enough to take up the torch. If so, have fun. I've got no more time to waste on the smouldering brushfire that is ncurses development, and I'm sick of trying to find some middle ground between people's need/desire for an updated, bug-fixed library and the various personality disputes that exist between the ncurses developers. There's still a small glitch in there somewhere, but it produces the packages, and shouldn't need more than a small bit of tuning. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 11:18:58 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA23837 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:18:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA24441; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:05:41 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706031509.LAA05528@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:09:41 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199706030555.WAA29613@gandalf.sigmasoft.com> from "Thorsten Lockert" at Jun 2, 97 10:55:21 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 820 Lines: 17 Thorsten Lockart: > I am not so certain about that; if it had a pure BSD license (which, > like the GPL, allows redistributing changed versions, but does not > have some of the GPL's other limitations), yes. Seeing now that it > does not, I am not at all sure that OpenBSD will keep on distributing > it, as we (or, actually, I) have made some changes to it that we felt > were needed. I think I can safely assert that neither Zeyd nor myself wants to prevent OpenBSD from making necessary local adaptations. That we assert a right to control the redistribution of modified versions does not mean we want to forbid all such modifications. That reservation is not intended to hoard the code. Rather, it is intended to prevent abuses like Thomas Dickey's. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 11:19:44 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA24192 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:19:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA24611; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:09:40 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706031513.LAA05556@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:13:59 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: from "Marcus G. Daniels" at Jun 2, 97 11:10:26 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 748 Lines: 16 > ESR> The problem is that if "free software" includes a right to > ESR> redistribute modified copies, the optimal strategy is hijacking > ESR> and parasitism, not being original and productive. And the > ESR> culture doesn't want that. > > Do you have evidence that ncurses development was lacking originality > or that productivity was low? Excuse me, I think you may not be following the logic correctly. According to my argument, the ncurses license should have prevented these problems. Therefore if I answered "yes" you would have no new information. It did not prevent hijacking, but that's because Thomas Dickey is willing to do things that are ethically and legally wrong. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 16:57:51 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA23832 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 16:57:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id NAA17813; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:47:19 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706032012.QAA06863@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: [marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels)] Re: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 16:12:01 -0400 (EDT) Cc: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu In-Reply-To: <87raejzo5o.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> from "Michael Alan Dorman" at Jun 3, 97 11:44:51 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 271 Lines: 8 Michael Alan Dorfman writes: > Do not use my good name for your own ends. That is dastardly. Ah. Perhaps you now understand why I'm pissed off at Thomas Dickey. Not so nice when it happens to *you*, is it? -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 17:26:54 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA04548 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 17:26:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id OAA19712; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 14:16:21 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706032120.RAA07103@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 17:20:21 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <19970603175005.27514@knorke.saar.de> from "Florian La Roche" at Jun 3, 97 05:50:05 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 333 Lines: 8 > If Thomas really prevents you from further developing ncurses, these > things should help. Or don't they? These things *would* help. A great deal. Keith Bostic and I are trying to work out something along these lines. You're on the short list to be kept up to date. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 23:59:12 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA27110 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:59:10 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id UAA19678; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:45:49 -0700 (PDT) To: Michael Alan Dorman Cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: [marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels)] Re: What is "free software"? References: <87raejzo5o.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> From: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: 03 Jun 1997 20:42:10 -0700 In-Reply-To: Michael Alan Dorman's message of 03 Jun 1997 11:44:51 -0400 Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 675 Lines: 20 >>>>> "MAD" == Michael Alan Dorman writes: MAD> If I have something to say to Eric Raymond, then *I'LL* say it. You did; you spoke in a public place. http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-devel-9705/msg01173.html MAD> Do not use my good name for your own ends. That is dastardly. I distributed public information as an indicator of potential consequences of an action. MAD> Suffice it to say that I do not appreciate your reposting of my MAD> messages to any forum without my consent, and would gladly see you MAD> consigned to the lowest pit of Hell for it. MAD> That said, I stand behind every word. I expected nothing less. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 3 23:52:39 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA26180 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:52:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id VAA22460 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:43:40 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id VAA22456 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:43:34 -0600 (MDT) Received: from catapult.va.pubnix.com (catapult.va.pubnix.com [208.211.134.20]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA09689 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:43:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: by catapult.va.pubnix.com id XAA13325; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:43:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:43:29 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: From: David J MacKenzie To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: A bit premature, but I suppose I should ask... In-Reply-To: Peter Seebach's message of Tue, 3 June 1997 21:11:53 -0500 <199706040211.VAA06471@solutions.solon.com> References: <199706040211.VAA06471@solutions.solon.com> X-Tom-Swiftie: "I'll have to grade your test again," Tom remarked. Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 261 Lines: 6 On Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:11:53 -0500 (CDT), Peter Seebach said: > p.s.: Qualifications available on request. Mostly, I know C, and I'm > fairly easy to get along with, and I use curses. And his dad is (or was 10 years ago) a cool CS prof :-) From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 09:48:50 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA17342 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 09:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id GAA09064; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 06:21:09 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses@bsdi.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? In-reply-to: esr's message of Tue, 03 Jun 1997 18:13:19 -0400. <199706032213.SAA07286@snark.thyrsus.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <12091.865430450.1@foxharp.boston.ma.us> Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 09:20:50 -0400 Message-ID: <12093.865430450@foxharp.boston.ma.us> From: Paul Fox Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 4146 Lines: 80 > > > That we assert a right to control the redistribution of modified > > > versions does not mean we want to forbid all such modifications. ... > > The existence of the provisions that allow you to forbid modifications > > is---to be dramatic---a loaded but uncocked gun held at the head of > > projects like Debian or OpenBSD. > > I understand why you might feel that way. But I also see an inconsistency. > If this is such a deal-breaker for Debian, then why do its guidelines say: > > > The Debian Free Software Guidelines > > 1. The software may be redistributed by anyone. The license may restrict > > a source file from being distributed in modified form, as long as it > > allows modified binary files, and files that are distributed along > > with the source for the express purpose of modifying the source. > > It appears to me that this paragraph specifically *permits* licenses > like that of ncurses. In fact I don't see how it could have been > written with any other intention in mind. it is not at all clear to me, reading the ncurses copyright notice, that this is in fact the case. i quote (from lib_data.c): /*************************************************************************** * COPYRIGHT NOTICE * **************************************************************************** * ncurses is copyright (C) 1992-1995 * * Zeyd M. Ben-Halim * * zmbenhal@netcom.com * * Eric S. Raymond * * esr@snark.thyrsus.com * * * * Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute ncurses * * by any means and for any fee, whether alone or as part of a * * larger distribution, in source or in binary form, PROVIDED * * this notice is included with any such distribution, and is not * * removed from any of its header files. Mention of ncurses in any * * applications linked with it is highly appreciated. * * * * ncurses comes AS IS with no warranty, implied or expressed. * * * ***************************************************************************/ by contrast, the standard BSD license (from a file in FreeBSD's libc/stdio) reads: * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions * are met: etc.. it is clear that the BSD license waives what someone here called the "adaptive right", the sole right to produce derivative works. i cannot see that the ncurses license waives that right for _either_ source or binary forms. it looks like the only way one could distribute ncurses (legally) as part of, say, Debian, is to ship the unmodified source, an appropriate set of patches, and have the end-user apply and build. BTW, i see that the file "ncurses.lsm" that accompanies 1.9.9 releases, and which appears in ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses states: Copying-policy: BSD-like. this is clearly _not_ the case, and is extremely misleading, since although most people have a good idea, via common practice, of what their rights are under a "BSD-like" Copyright, far fewer will note the omission of those crucial few words allowing modification from the ncurses license. in addition, the ANNOUNCE file that accompanies ncurses calls the software "freeware", another fairly loaded term. imo, if the Eric and Zeyd wish to retain rigid control over their products, they should be more rigourous and up front about stating that policy in the first place. paul --------------------- paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma) From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 16:13:50 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA17108 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 16:13:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id MAA08500; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 12:50:53 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3395C68E.4BD20FB@T-Online.de> Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 21:48:30 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com Subject: Re: ncurses X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------7ACDD3621F94AB5299765CDB" X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2813 Lines: 76 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------7ACDD3621F94AB5299765CDB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------7ACDD3621F94AB5299765CDB Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-ID: <3395BE2C.C4FFF661@T-Online.de> Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 21:12:44 +0200 From: Juergen Pfeifer X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Keith Bostic Subject: Re: ncurses X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199706032150.RAA26953@mongoose.bostic.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Keith Bostic wrote: > Just to keep everyone up-to-date on what I know, or what I think > I know. ;-} > > First, let me say that I'm not trying to force a solution on > anyone, and I'm only acting as an interested party that doesn't > want to see a lot of great work go to waste. If I'm getting in > the way, just let me know and I'll shut up! > > My understanding is that Eric and Thomas have both agreed, in > principle, to finding a neutral 3rd party to manage the ncurses > project. There are 3 people that have expressed willingness to > act in this role. In no particular order, they are: > > Peter Seebach seebs@solon.com > Florian La Roche florian@knorke.saar.de > Jason Evans jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu > All of them look ok to me. I know Florian is working for a popularGerman Linux distributor, might be this is a small bonus point for him. > Eric is not yet sure he's willing to agree to a new copyright > notice which would permit modification and redistribution. He's > investigating some possible alternatives that might satisfy > folks needs and his wishes. I have told Eric that I believe > this is an important issue for the BSD and Linux groups as well > as for the FSF. > > Thomas, Juergen, Zeyd, I haven't spoken with you on this issue > -- please let me know if you are comfortable with either the BSD > or LGPL copyrights for the ncurses work, with copyright held by > the FSF. > I already said that BSD or LGPL is ok for me. I only want to seemy name in the code I've written. > Juergen, Zeyd, I apologize that I haven't spoken with either of > you. In particular, please forgive me if I'm stepping on your > toes -- that is not my intention. Juergen, I would also > encourage you to consider if managing the ncurses group would > be something that you would have time to do and feel comfortable > doing? > If that's what necessary to get things right and will be agreed byall players I will do that. > Right now, I think that we're on hold until Eric comes back with > his decision on the copyright. > > --keith Juergen --------------7ACDD3621F94AB5299765CDB-- From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 18:19:55 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA05626 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:19:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA14013; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 15:11:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3395E7A5.FA111FFD@T-Online.de> Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 00:09:42 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Eric S. Raymond" , "Thomas E. Dickey" , ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu, bostic@bsdi.com Subject: Primary ncurses maintainer X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1150 Lines: 33 Summary of my position: First and preferred option: I'll take the role of the primary maintainer for ncurses under these conditions: - There is a public agreement from Eric and Zeyd - They transfer the copyright to me - I'll distribute ncurses BSD like (or under LGPL if that is what the community wants) - The decision will be made until June,13th - I'll take the job immediately after the decision. There is no "test phase" monitored by Eric, there is no way to revert the decision for Eric. - Someone provides write-access to a large enough ftp account Second option: One of the other (P. Seebach, F. LaRoche, J. Evans) becomes the primary maintainer. This should be decided also until June, 13th. Again there should be no "backdoor" to revert the decision. Third option: The situation with ncurses is not resolved until June,13th. In this case I'll stop contributing to ncurses and participate in a new project to get a free curses clone for the community. I'll then act as a coordinator to get this project on the road, later on the question who will maintain this project can be decided. Cheers Juergen From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 18:52:37 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA16777 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:52:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA16102; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 15:42:49 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 15:41:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com, bostic@bostic.com Subject: Re: ncurses In-Reply-To: <3395C68E.4BD20FB@T-Online.de> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2039 Lines: 49 On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Juergen Pfeifer wrote: > Keith Bostic wrote: > > My understanding is that Eric and Thomas have both agreed, in > > principle, to finding a neutral 3rd party to manage the ncurses > > project. There are 3 people that have expressed willingness to > > act in this role. In no particular order, they are: > > > > Peter Seebach seebs@solon.com > > Florian La Roche florian@knorke.saar.de > > Jason Evans jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu > > Eric is not yet sure he's willing to agree to a new copyright > > notice which would permit modification and redistribution. He's > > investigating some possible alternatives that might satisfy > > folks needs and his wishes. I have told Eric that I believe > > this is an important issue for the BSD and Linux groups as well > > as for the FSF. I'm only willing to take on ncurses if it is under a new license; either the Berkeley license (minus the advertising clause) or the GPL/LGPL, or something similarly "free" that grants the right to redistribute modified versions. > > ... Juergen, I would also > > encourage you to consider if managing the ncurses group would > > be something that you would have time to do and feel comfortable > > doing? > > > If that's what necessary to get things right and will be agreed by all > players I will do that. I would strongly support Juergen as the new manager of ncurses. He has demonstrated his ability and knowledge of ncurses, and seems very capable of keeping ncurses moving forward. On the other hand, I will join with Juergen in the development of a new curses if no resolution is reached for ncurses on or before 13 June. I know of others who are also willing to contribute to this effort if need be. One way or another, we will have a free curses library. Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed Jun 4 19:38:33 1997 Received: from sun1.clark.net (sun1.clark.net [198.17.243.2]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA01789 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 19:38:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by sun1.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA20583 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 19:39:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id RAA03393 for ncurses-outgoing; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:33:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAA03389 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:33:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from solutions.solon.com (root@solutions.solon.com [192.129.84.3]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA00665 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:33:07 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from seebs@localhost) by solutions.solon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14857 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:33:10 -0500 (CDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:33:10 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706042333.SAA14857@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Maintainers... Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 210 Lines: 5 I would be quite happy to see Juergen as the new maintainer of ncurses. I am still willing to maintain ncurses if that doesn't work out, but I would say that Juergen is better qualified for this than I am. -s From jasone@leo.mrc.uidaho.edu Wed Jun 4 20:22:35 1997 Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA15182 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 20:22:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id RAA15357; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:22:30 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:22:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans Reply-To: Jason Evans To: ncurses@bsdi.com cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu, bostic@bostic.com Subject: pcurses license Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 2828 Lines: 48 Following is the pcurses license (from curses.h). It only grants redistribution without modification. Unless Zeyd and Eric received permission from Pavel Curtis to release ncurses, it appears that ncurses was (and I assume still is) in direct violation of the pcurses license, concerning redistribution. Furthermore, the notice was removed from ncurses between the 1.8.7 and 1.8.8 releases, according to Thomas, which is also in direct violation of the pcurses license. Does anyone have anything to say about this? It appears to me that the existence of ncurses is in direct violation of the license on its parent, pcurses. Also, even though ncurses is much different now than it was in the beginning, it will always be a derivative work of pcurses, which means we have to get Pavel's permission (ideally, copyright assignment) to distribute ncurses. In my mind, this is an unacceptable state of affairs for a library that the free software community is very dependent on. /********************************************************************* * COPYRIGHT NOTICE * ********************************************************************** * This software is copyright (C) 1982 by Pavel Curtis * * * * Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute * * this file by any means so long as no fee is charged * * above a nominal handling fee and so long as this * * notice is always included in the copies. * * * * Other rights are reserved except as explicitly granted * * by written permission of the author. * * Pavel Curtis * * Computer Science Dept. * * 405 Upson Hall * * Cornell University * * Ithaca, NY 14853 * * * * Ph- (607) 256-4934 * * * * Pavel.Cornell@Udel-Relay (ARPAnet) * * decvax!cornell!pavel (UUCPnet) * *********************************************************************/ Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From zmbenhal@netcom.com Wed Jun 4 21:03:35 1997 Received: from netcom6.netcom.com (zmbenhal@netcom6.netcom.com [192.100.81.114]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id VAA26126 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 21:03:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from zmbenhal@localhost) by netcom6.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id SAA09193; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:03:37 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:03:37 -0700 From: zmbenhal@netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199706050103.SAA09193@netcom6.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: pcurses license Cc: bostic@bostic.com, dickey@clark.net, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Content-Length: 1230 Lines: 22 >Following is the pcurses license (from curses.h). It only grants >redistribution without modification. Unless Zeyd and Eric received >permission from Pavel Curtis to release ncurses, it appears that ncurses >was (and I assume still is) in direct violation of the pcurses license, >concerning redistribution. Furthermore, the notice was removed from >ncurses between the 1.8.7 and 1.8.8 releases, according to Thomas, which >is also in direct violation of the pcurses license. According to Adam Richter of Yggdrasil, Pavel Curtis released his work in pcurses into the public domain. Up until that point I included his copyright notice and a copyright notice to cover my own work. Thomas was not involved with ncurses at the time and is not privy what happened before he did. It is kinda late for him to question events. All of a sudden people are coming out the woodwork claiming that ncurses is not free because they were not aware of the copyright! The main purpose of the copyright is to prevent others from taking ncurses, modifying it, and then releasing it as their own work. I believe QNX include a modified copy of ncurses, but nobody is complaining becuase they are not misrepresenting it as their own work. Zeyd From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 22:35:04 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA22455 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 22:35:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id TAA01884; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 19:25:08 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706050228.WAA14396@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What is "free software"? To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 22:28:17 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <3395C525.B3D09DA4@T-Online.de> from "Juergen Pfeifer" at Jun 4, 97 09:42:29 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2139 Lines: 43 Juergen: > Eric, is this a commitment? Do you assign copyright to Peter? When? > What's about the other volunteers for a primary maintainer (Florian LaRoche > and Jason Evans)? I realized last night that if Zeyd and I assign copyright to a new primary maintainer, *that* person will get to set the license terms and there will be nothing we can really say about it. Keith Bostic has been trying to hammer out a deal that would hand everybody's copyright claims to a new primary maintainer. We've discussed a short list of people for the position. It didn't include you because you never responded to my posting saying that I thought you a very suitable person. It included Peter Seebach, Florian LaRoche, and Jason Evans. Our thinking so far is that Jason hasn't been around long enough to qualify. Out of Peter and Florian, we think Florian probably has better knowledge of the ncurses code, but Peter has better people and communications skills and more of a rep in several relevant communities. Given the kind of mess we're in and what it will take to manage the project, we think that makes Peter the first person to offer the baton to. It is also in his favor that he hasn't been involved in any of the recent scrapping here. That should make it easier for him to work with all parties. Nothing is final yet. There are some concerns about whether Peter can allocate enough time; this will depend partly on whether he gets a job offer he's expecting from BSDI. Keith and I are doing our damnedest to see that the free-software community's interests are served. So don't go starting any projects yet. This one isn't dead or irretrievably lost. And I'm certain that Keith, myself, and the new primary maintainer will all want you on the team. If you want the primary maintainer job yourself, speak up now. You've earned a shot at it if you want -- and Keith Bostic will confirm that I said that to him six months ago. Now, I must say honestly that I think the factors that make Peter a better choice than Florian even put him a cat's whisker ahead of you. -- Eric S. Raymond From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Thu Jun 5 01:41:07 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id BAA06705 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 01:41:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id BAA06661; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 01:41:29 -0400 Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 01:41:29 -0400 Message-Id: <199706050541.BAA06661@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de CC: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, bostic@bsdi.com In-reply-to: <3395E7A5.FA111FFD@T-Online.de> (Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de) Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer References: <3395E7A5.FA111FFD@T-Online.de> Status: RO Content-Length: 1017 Lines: 23 "I'll distribute ncurses BSD like" People tend to speak of "BSD-style distribution terms" when they really mean to say, "distribution terms that contain essentially no restrictions." But the actual BSD distribution terms contain an unnecessary and troublesome restriction--one which is not found in the GNU GPL. I speak of the obnoxious advertising requirement. As this is imitated by others who release free software, it leads to untenable situation for any advertisements about free software. If you are looking for distributions terms which really are entirely permissive and have minimal requirements, you can find them in X11. So please, everyone, don't use "BSD distribution terms" as your way of saying entirely nonrestrictive terms. Say "X11 distribution terms" instead. This simple effort to speak one way instead of another can make a real difference. If your usage leads one new free software dveloper to copy the distribution terms from X11 instead of from BSD, that will be a good thing. From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Thu Jun 5 05:35:17 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA06401 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:35:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id FAA08229; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:35:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:35:33 -0400 Message-Id: <199706050935.FAA08229@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu CC: ncurses@bsdi.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, bostic@bostic.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: (message from Jason Evans on Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:22:29 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: pcurses license References: Status: RO Content-Length: 491 Lines: 10 If it is true that ncurses still includes material derived from pcurses, then we would need to have Pavel's permission for its use. However, if he gave permission for the use of this material in ncurses some time ago, that permission may be sufficient. It depends on the details of the permission that was given. Also, if he sees our situation, and he thinks that our plans for ncurses are a reasonable way of handling the situation, he may extend the permission that he gave previously. From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Thu Jun 5 05:51:01 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (root@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA07880 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:51:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id FAA08258; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:40:58 -0400 Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:40:58 -0400 Message-Id: <199706050940.FAA08258@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: zmbenhal@netcom.com CC: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, bostic@bostic.com, dickey@clark.net, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <199706050103.SAA09193@netcom6.netcom.com> (zmbenhal@netcom.com) Subject: Re: pcurses license References: <199706050103.SAA09193@netcom6.netcom.com> Status: RO Content-Length: 796 Lines: 19 The main purpose of the copyright is to prevent others from taking ncurses, modifying it, and then releasing it as their own work. There is no conflict between this goal and the needs of free operating systems. The problem comes from specific method being used to achieve this goal--the specific distribution terms now used. I believe QNX include a modified copy of ncurses, but nobody is complaining becuase they are not misrepresenting it as their own work. If the distribution terms explicitly said to everyone that we are allowed to do what QNX is doing--that is, release a modified version and label it properly as to where it came from--then there would be no problem. In other words, it seems that the present ncurses distribution terms don't match your intentions. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Thu Jun 5 06:17:50 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id GAA10884 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 06:17:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id EAA11563 for ncurses-outgoing; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 04:07:35 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id EAA11559 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 04:07:32 -0600 (MDT) Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id EAA14765; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 04:07:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id GAA08368; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 06:07:22 -0400 Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 06:07:22 -0400 Message-Id: <199706051007.GAA08368@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de CC: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, bostic@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <339665D9.C8ED54F2@T-Online.de> (Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de) Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer References: <3395E7A5.FA111FFD@T-Online.de> <199706050541.BAA06661@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <339665D9.C8ED54F2@T-Online.de> Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 592 Lines: 13 The commented phrase is a bit out of context. Reading the whole paragraph of my message it becomes quite clear that I'm open to any good suggestion from the community for the distribution terms I know that. I didn't write this to criticize you, but to warn everyone that a certain common way of speaking risks leading people astray. and that my intention is to find terms that say free, mean free and are free. I hope to educate people, so that when they have this kind of intentions, they will not think "BSD-style distribution terms" is a good way to express them. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jun 5 08:52:47 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA09439 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:52:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id FAA22455; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 05:43:51 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 07:43:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706051243.HAA19167@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 631 Lines: 13 Actually, when I was referring to a BSD-like license, the requirement of mentioning the original authorship in advertising was at least partially in my mind. I think that's a good feature of the BSD license. Not that "all software should have this feature", but I think it's an important part of the style of licensing the BSD folks are looking for. I wouldn't call the BSD terms nonrestrictive by any means; they merely give a lot of commonly-wanted freedoms. (At the expense of others.) The only "entirely nonrestrictive terms" I can think of would be making something public domain - which has its own set of problems. -s From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Thu Jun 5 09:20:00 1997 Received: from allison.clark.net (allison.clark.net [168.143.0.3]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id JAA19070 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 09:19:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by allison.clark.net (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA26813 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 09:20:18 -0400 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id HAA12592 for ncurses-outgoing; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 07:07:32 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id HAA12588 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 07:07:22 -0600 (MDT) Received: from solutions.solon.com (root@solutions.solon.com [192.129.84.3]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA28984 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 07:07:12 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from seebs@localhost) by solutions.solon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA19336 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:07:10 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:07:10 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706051307.IAA19336@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Maintainers and contributors revisited... Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1015 Lines: 24 Thomas Dickey's been awfully quiet lately. Does he still read this list? Has anyone heard from him on which (if any) maintainer he would be willing to work with? All legal issues aside, he's put in a lot of work, and I think he should have at least a say about the possible maintainers. (I would assume he'd be willing to work with Juergen, but I have no guarantees.) I mean, whether or not he ends up with copyright or ownership, I think the amount of effort and code he's contributed earns him at least some place in discussions of the future, and a spot in the credits. I would say that, at least legally, ESR and Zeyd probably have more pull, and even deciding votes between them, but I'd like to know what Thomas thinks, because if there's maintainers he isn't willing to work with, that's a potential for loss to the project. Projects have managed before to have contributers who don't get along; it would be a shame for ncurses to have to lose any of the significant contributors over this. MHO. -s From jasone@leo.mrc.uidaho.edu Thu Jun 5 16:47:11 1997 Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA18717 for ; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 16:47:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id NAA19672; Thu, 5 Jun 1997 13:47:29 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 13:47:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans To: "T.E.Dickey" cc: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu, ncurses-list@netcom.com, bostic@bostic.com Subject: Re: pcurses license In-Reply-To: <199706051011.GAA21377@explorer2.clark.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 1006 Lines: 21 On Thu, 5 Jun 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote: > I sent email to Pavel last night (having gotten a current address via > DejaNews), and he has no problems with that. Jason was misinterpreting my > statement of distaste (for the removal of the original author's name from > files rather than citing the author in the copyright notice), as opposed to > a claim that they'd violated his legal rights). My apologies for misunderstanding the current license on pcurses. I wasn't trying to drag old skeletons out of the closet, but did think it prudent to make sure that the pcurses license allowed what is currently being discussed in the ncurses negotiations. All the information I had available to me pointed to the pcurses license I mailed out yesterday. Again, I apologize for my misunderstanding. Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Sun Jun 1 21:12:11 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA02792; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:12:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id TAA23436; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:57:06 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706012357.TAA23436@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:57:06 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199705301956.PAA30350@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at May 30, 97 03:56:10 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 447 Lines: 9 > The US does not recognize "moral rights". However, it may be that > Dickey is violating the distribution conditions, or that he's doing > something uncooperatinve and not good for the community. There's case law supporting the application of Berne Convention artists' rights in this country. I believe the MIT Press book on copyright law should prove enlightening in this regard. -- Eric S. Raymond From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Sun Jun 1 21:11:39 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA02697; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:11:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id UAA23629; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:36:45 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020036.UAA23629@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:36:44 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <338F43BF.B13A7231@T-Online.de> from "Juergen Pfeifer" at May 30, 97 11:16:48 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 4171 Lines: 98 Juergen: > weekly basis. His takeover of the ncurses project wasn't a hijacking! > This has > been discussed between Zeyd, Eric, Thomas and me. Oh, yes? Did he ever answer you when you asked him why he dropped me off the maintainers' list without my consent? I seem to recall you bringing that question up at one time. *I* never saw a reply. Did *you*? I *never* gave consent for the rogue 4.0 to be issued. Nor did Zeyd. > If he feels this is an unfair statement I ask him to give > an example > of a significant contribution to ncurses he made in the last 12 month. You want last twelve months? That's not too fair because Thomas's intransigence drove me away in disgust for the last six months. But I can fill your bill anyway. Let's talk about fixing the blasted cursor-movement optimizer so it actually worked, and contributing a novel algorithm that optimizes normal text-editor-like updates faster than even BSD's. Let's talk about mouse support. Let's talk about compiled-in fallback types. Let's talk about toe(1). Let's talk about the ability to automatically fall back on a termcap file Let's talk about maintaining every single line of the god-damned documentation, something nobody else on this project Since your memory appears to be faulty, here is a summary of what I have contributed since beginning work on ncurses in November 1993: The following entry points: setterm(), wgetnstr(), ripoffline(), termattrs(), delay_output(), wechochar(), addchstr(), addchnstr(), getwin(), putwin(), scr_dump(), scr_restore(), termname(), delscreen(), getparyx(), notimeout(), wnotimeout(), mvderwin(), wcursyncup(), wsyncup(), slk_attrset(), slk_attron(), slk_attroff(), idcok(), winchnstr(), qiflush(), noqiflush(), winnstr(), immedok(), winsnstr(), intrflush(), restartterm(), scr_set(), scr_init(), color_content(), wsyncdown(), filter(). Critical fixes to the following programs and modules: src/lib_getch.c, src/lib_vidattr.c, src/lib_getstr.c, src/lib_pad.c, src/lib_doupdate.c, data/linux, src/lib_insdel.c, test/gdc.c. Major new user-visible features: * infocmp(1m), captoinfo(1m), tput(1), clear(1), tset(1), toe(1). * Automatic loading of forms character set on 386/486 machines. * A_PCCHARSET highlight for ROM-character display on 386/486 machines. * Hardware scrolling support with scroll-packing optimization. * Fast, cheap, *correct* cursor movement optimization. * tic can compile descriptions in either terminfo or termcap syntax. * automatic fallback to /etc/termcap from the library startup * -F option to infocmp for terminfo file comparisons * capabilities ~msgr, tilde_glitch, insert_padding, generic_type, no_pad_char, memory_above, memory_below, non_dest_scroll_region, and hard_copy are now used properly. * mouse support for xterm; the mouse interface design. Major programmer-visible new features: * Added complete man pages. * HTML `Introduction to ncurses' document. * Trace levels; greatly improved update tracing. * The ncurses interactive tester. * The fallback-entry-list feature. I have also been responsible for the following: * The ports to BSD/386 and SVr4. * The terminfo file now included with the distribution. * The code to handle deficient BSD select(2) * Made configuration process work with old awk. * SVr4 %A and %O terminfo escapes. * Rewritten compiler with better use resolution, comment passthrough. * Rewritten configuration system. * Lots of compatibility testing against SVr4. * Many small cleanups and fixes. Following the rewrite for termcap-fallback support, the code for tic(1) is essentially all mine now. So is all the update-optimization code other than the central TransformLine and PutChar/PutAttrChar machinery. > My > impression is that he knows a lot of people and has a lot of contacts in > the > freeware scene, and now he abuses this for his private war against > Thomas Dickey. If Eric really has no interest in maintaining ncurses, > why > doesn't he Thomas just let do his good job. Because betrayed my trust in him and has now tried to shaft me *twice*. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Sun Jun 1 21:19:03 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA04329 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:19:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id TAA28023 for ncurses-outgoing; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:08:36 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id TAA28019 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:08:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA24362 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 19:08:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id UAA23643; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:39:19 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020039.UAA23643@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: UPS, the teamsters, and ncurses To: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:39:19 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <19970530233240.16532@knorke.saar.de> from "Florian La Roche" at May 30, 97 11:32:40 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 794 Lines: 19 > I can see the problem that you two won't come together in the near future. > But I cannot say, that Thomas Dickey is a bad maintainer of the ncurses > source code. As far as I can see, he includes all patches he gets send. > > What do we want more? He *has* in fact effectively refused to accept my patches, by the sneaky device of #ifdefing them out in the standard distrubition and providing no configuration option with which to enable them. > > or organization of good repute wants to step up to the plate, I am > > more than willing to cooperate for a smooth transition and orderly > > transfer of rights. > > It is astonishing for me, that the ncurses source code is still that unfree. It's not GPLed. Never has been. -- Eric S. Raymond From esr@snark.thyrsus.com Sun Jun 1 21:09:04 1997 Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA02151; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:09:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id UAA23753; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:52:51 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706020052.UAA23753@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: Mr. Dickey's playtime is over To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 20:52:51 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com, jamie@clark.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@bsdi.org.thyrsus.com In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at May 30, 97 11:50:13 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Status: RO Content-Length: 2277 Lines: 53 > 1) Under what license was the predecessor to ncurses released? (pcurses) I don't know. I've never seen those sources. > 2) Doesn't the copyright notice by Zeyd Ben-Halim and Eric Raymond grant > permission to do pretty much anything with the ncurses distribution? No explicit license removes my Berne Convention right not to have my work defaced or mutilated to my discredit. > 3) As long as Thomas Dickey didn't remove the copyright notice from any of > the header files (which means there could conceivably end up being > header file with nothing but a copyright notice in them), hasn't he > abided by the ncurses license as stated by Ben-Halim and Raymond? See above. The moral charge against him (as oppsed to the legal one) is that he has grossly violated the customs ubnder which hackers normally cooperate. By a strategy of dumb intransigence, he has nearly hypnotized others into accepting his high-handed acts. > 4) Why wasn't ncurses re-released under the GPL/LGPL long ago in order to > make the copyright situation clearer? Zeyd didn't want it that way. I didn't consider the issue worth pressing, because I have my own reservations about GPLing libraries. > 5) Why is ncurses on the GNU distribution sites when it doesn't have a > GPL? I was completely shocked to not find the GPL in the ncurses > distribution. That's a good question, which I hope RMS will answer. I don't quite understand it myself. > 6) Why are people so concerned over who owns free software? I am not particularly concerned over who owns the software in a legal sense. I am concerned over Mr. Dickey's repeated violation of hacker customs. He has no right to claim control of a project and issue distributions when senior maintainers (Zeyd and myself) actively protested both actions. He had no right to strip me from the maintainers' list without my consent -- I'm senior to him and one of the copyright holders, dammit! He had no right to effectively refuse to incorporate *my* patches to *my* algorithm. I will *not* have him controlling, or even *claiming* to control, future distributions. Whatever the merits of his technical patches, he is not a trustworthy development partner. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 12:31:19 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA11461 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:31:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA11107; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 09:11:24 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:05:43 -0400 Message-Id: <199706021505.LAA28425@snark.thyrsus.com> From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: A reminder about the facts Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 638 Lines: 15 In view of Mr. Dickey's last post, I think everybody ought to be reminded of some important facts: (1) *Both* copyright holders (myself and Zeyd) have now rejected Thomas Dickey's version of events. (2) *Both* of the two most senior maintainers (myself and Zeyd) have now described being driven away in disgust by Thomas Dickey's high-handedness, dumb intransigence, and outright lies. I fear there are still some people out there who think I'm on some kind of crazed solo power trip. Please consider Zeyd's public statements on this list and learn otherwise. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 14:19:03 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA28187 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 14:19:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id MAA05595 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:08:06 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id MAA05591 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:08:02 -0600 (MDT) Received: from solutions.solon.com (root@solutions.solon.com [192.129.84.3]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA25638 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:07:55 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from seebs@localhost) by solutions.solon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA23391 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:07:46 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:07:46 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706021807.NAA23391@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1082 Lines: 23 (Hoping all of the people in the To: list are on the ncurses list) I think it's instructive to compare this with the XEmacs thing. In that case, users who disagreed with RMS about the direction of the project *did* fork. There are a lot of XEmacs users. There are a lot of Emacs users. Most of the time, they remain on good terms and exchange patches. Look also at the *BSD's; we're up to three free versions of 4.4BSD, which have split over issues like this. The concern I mostly have here is that, in the other cases, the split or divergence of views is marked by a name change. Perhaps Eric should release encurses, or Tom should release dncurses? In any event, I would say that there's ample evidence that splits can and will survive, and it looks like this is a typical kind of thing over which people split. Normally, this means that the "fork" chooses a new name. I'm not sure which maintainer would be the "fork" in this case; traditionally, the most active maintainers are the main branch, and traditionally, the most senior maintainers are the main branch. -s From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 15:19:58 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA21657 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:19:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id MAA01990; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:04:32 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:10:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Cc: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts In-Reply-To: <199706021505.LAA28425@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 4904 Lines: 98 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:05:43 -0400 > From: "Eric S. Raymond" > Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > To: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu > Subject: A reminder about the facts > > In view of Mr. Dickey's last post, I think everybody ought to be > reminded of some important facts: > > (1) *Both* copyright holders (myself and Zeyd) have now rejected > Thomas Dickey's version of events. > > (2) *Both* of the two most senior maintainers (myself and Zeyd) have > now described being driven away in disgust by Thomas Dickey's > high-handedness, dumb intransigence, and outright lies. > > I fear there are still some people out there who think I'm on some > kind of crazed solo power trip. Please consider Zeyd's public > statements on this list and learn otherwise. I've been receiving this list for a long time, like over two years now I think. Dickey's behavior has always seemed fishy, like he wants to be the ncurses God at any cost. I say, write your own project. You don't prance into someone else's territory and start throwing weight around. It doesn't matter how good your patches are; technical merit is not in question. Should we grant special rights to genius programmers to usurp any software project they please? If Dickey is such a hot shot, he should be able to implement a curses library from the ground up. I think a few people here need to go news.answers/law/copyright/faq for a little refresher course. Free software remains the copyrights of its authors. Only the right to redistribute is waived (the GPL makes additional restrictions on that redistribution, but the GPL is not in question here since ncurses isn't under it). There are other rights beside distribution rights, and these remain reserved by the authors, unless they are explicitly waived. >From part2 of the faq: In the United States, these seven rights are recognized: 1) the reproductive right: the right to reproduce the work in copies; 2) the adaptative right: the right to produce derivative works based on the copyrighted work; 3) the distribution right: the right to distribute copies of the work; 4) the performance right: the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly; 5) the display right: the right to display the copyrighted work publicly; 6) the attribution right (sometimes called the paternity right): the right of the author to claim authorship of the work and to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of a work he or she did not create; 7) the integrity right: the right of an author to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of a distorted version of the work, to prevent intentional distortion of the work, and to prevent destruction of the work. 17 U.S.C. 106, 106A. The ncurses authors have waived rights 1 and 3 for the benefit of the user community, allowing people to copy and distribute ncurses. Rights 4 and 5 doesn't apply here, they are more for audio and visual arts. However, rights 2, 6 and 7 clearly apply to software. Eric and Zeyd clearly have the sole right to produce derivative works, have the sole right to claim authorship of the work and to prevent their names from being used as the authors of something they did not create, whether it be a modified or distorted version of their work or something totally original. There is no indication that they have given up these rights. Hence they can claim any derivative of ncurses as their own, without including any copyright notices on behalf of anyone else. They can also reject any poor quality, botched-up, derivative works as belonging to them, since they can be construed as a distrotions that violates the integrity right. (Incidentally, in software it's not immediately apparent what is a distortion, and what is solid gold. Any deriviation could be suspected to be a distortion until verified to be otherwise). The GPL is different in that it, but permits modification, hence waives the adaptive right to some extent. My interpretation is that the GPL extends ``joint rights'' in the sense that new authors may avail themselves of the adaptive right, without taking the right away from the original authors (since copyright notices are required to be preserved, and changes must be promienently marked), and may not reserve rights that the original authors did not reserve (the software must remain under the GPL). Under the GPL, Thomas could modify ncurses and add his own copyright messages. However, the GPL is too naive to be of any use in situations of conflict, such as this one. It does not resolve the issue of who is ``head honcho'' of the software project: who gets to make official releases, allocate version numbers and so forth. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 15:29:26 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA25033 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:29:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id NAA06368 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:16:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id NAA06364 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:16:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: from cafe.net (root@espresso.cafe.net [204.244.119.1]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA00272 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:16:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (latte.cafe.net) by cafe.net with SMTP id AA20652 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:14:17 -0700 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:22:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: Peter Seebach Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 In-Reply-To: <199706021807.NAA23391@solutions.solon.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1681 Lines: 36 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Peter Seebach wrote: > Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:07:46 -0500 (CDT) > From: Peter Seebach > To: ncurses@bsdi.com > Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 > > (Hoping all of the people in the To: list are on the ncurses list) > > I think it's instructive to compare this with the XEmacs thing. In > that case, users who disagreed with RMS about the direction of the project > *did* fork. There are a lot of XEmacs users. There are a lot of > Emacs users. Most of the time, they remain on good terms and exchange > patches. Hoever both forks are under the GPL. The GPL grants the right to produce derivative works. Ncurses is not under the GPL; it's not clear whether its license gives up the authors' adaptation right. I will pore over it to make sure. > Look also at the *BSD's; we're up to three free versions of 4.4BSD, > which have split over issues like this. > > The concern I mostly have here is that, in the other cases, the split > or divergence of views is marked by a name change. Perhaps Eric > should release encurses, or Tom should release dncurses? The question is whether Tom has a right to do that. If the ncurses guys have not waived the adaptation rights, all he can do is reproduce and distribute ncurses like any other user. As I see it, any derivative work he makes will fall into one of two categories: either it is of good quality, in which case it remains the property of the original authors under their adaptive right, or it is a poor quality ``distortion'' which the authors have a right to prevent. I take it that the authors get to decide what is a distortion and what isn't, and in any case they own the good stuff. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 15:51:04 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA03065 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:50:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id MAA14302; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:42:07 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:48:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Mutiny situation. In-Reply-To: <338F46F3.423CB99D@T-Online.de> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 831 Lines: 18 I have an idea: why don't the maintainers form a comittee, register it as a legal entity and then and assign their copyrights to that committee? The committee will then own ncurses and all of its derivative works. Someone wishing to contribute will have to be voted in as a member. The committee's charter will provide a way to dissolve the organization and pass on the rights to some named member or members. The organization will decide, in a fair manner, the timing of releases and their contents. It will be able to reject or accept changes suggested by any of the members according to a democratic process, taking into account comments from the user base. Someone like Thomas Dickey will either lose interest in the project, or try to swerve the comittee toward a dissolution in which he is named the sole proprietor. :) From kaz@cafe.net Mon Jun 2 15:47:19 1997 Received: from cafe.net (root@espresso.cafe.net [204.244.119.1]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id PAA01753 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:47:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (latte.cafe.net) by cafe.net with SMTP id AA21263 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:45:31 -0700 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:54:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: "T.E.Dickey" Cc: Ncurses Mailing List Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 In-Reply-To: <199706021938.PAA22905@clark.net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 1046 Lines: 25 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote: > Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:38:42 -0400 (EDT) > From: "T.E.Dickey" > To: Kaz Kylheku > Cc: Ncurses Mailing List > Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 > > > The question is whether Tom has a right to do that. If the ncurses guys > To paraphrase: the question is whether Eric or Zeyd have the right to > distribute my changes (more than a third of the changes to the ncurses > library). There is no question of of their right. It doesn't matter whether you changed five, thirty or seventy percent. A derivative work is a derivative work. The authors have the sole adaptive right over that work. If you don't like it, make a 100% t.e. dickey curses. Incidentally, I was under the impression that ncurses is freely distributed. You can't allow the user base at large to distribute ncurses freely along with your changes, yet specifically deny distribution rights to Eric and Zeyd. What you are insinuating is that your changes are not freely distributed software. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 17:25:34 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA09721 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:25:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id OAA11741; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 14:11:06 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:10:35 -0400 Message-Id: <199706022110.RAA21396@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman to: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: (message from Kaz Kylheku on Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:10:35 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts References: Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1890 Lines: 42 I just checked the ncurses distribution terms, and was very surprised: they *do not* give permission for distribution of modified versions. I had assumed ncurses was free software because "everyone knew" it". I was under the impression that ncurses was derived from some BSD software and was distributed under the same terms as BSD. I should have checked the distribution terms when the FSF first considered distributing ncurses. I am sorry I failed to do that. Unfortunately, this means that ncurses is not free software. The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. As a result, it is indeed forbidden for Dickey, or any of us, to distribute modified versions. So I deleted ncurses 4.1 from prep. I also deleted the other versions of ncurses from prep, because the FSF exists to develop and distribute free software only. Distributing a non-free program, even if legally permitted, does not advance our mission. The free software community is now in a hole. We need a good free curses package for free operating systems, and the one we thought we had, we do not have. I can see three possible ways we can come up with one: * ESR and Zeyd together can agree to permit distribution of modified versions and thus make ncurses free software. * Someone can write a new program which is free software. Perhaps some of Dickey's code, and other recent contributors' code, can be used as part of this. * There may be another good alternative, or at least one that is better than nothing. Does anyone know? The first way is best. Perhaps it is possible. ESR spoke of transferring ncurses to the FSF. If both ESR and Zeyd are willing to say yes to this, and understand that we would have to change the distribution terms and thus make ncurses free software, then the FSF will say yes to it. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 18:08:28 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA26932 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 18:08:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id OAA26121; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 14:57:07 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:56:30 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706022156.QAA25280@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 86 Lines: 4 Well, it's certainly a step backwards, but I'm pretty sure 4.4BSD curses is free. -s From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 18:24:34 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA02364 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 18:24:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id QAA07642 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:14:54 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id QAA07638 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:14:44 -0600 (MDT) Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA13075 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:14:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id PAA03879; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:14:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:14:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans Reply-To: Jason Evans To: Kaz Kylheku cc: "T.E.Dickey" , Ncurses Mailing List , ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1577 Lines: 36 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Kaz Kylheku wrote: > On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > > The question is whether Tom has a right to do that. If the ncurses guys > > To paraphrase: the question is whether Eric or Zeyd have the right to > > distribute my changes (more than a third of the changes to the ncurses > > library). > > There is no question of of their right. It doesn't matter whether you changed > five, thirty or seventy percent. A derivative work is a derivative work. > The authors have the sole adaptive right over that work. > > If you don't like it, make a 100% t.e. dickey curses. > > Incidentally, I was under the impression that ncurses is freely distributed. > You can't allow the user base at large to distribute ncurses freely along with > your changes, yet specifically deny distribution rights to Eric and Zeyd. > > What you are insinuating is that your changes are not freely distributed > software. Well, we've gone full circle now. Kaz, you're accusing Thomas of retracting redistribution rights from Eric and Zeyd. If you recall back a few days, that's exactly what Eric's intention was (and apparently still is). Why are you so bent out of shape about Thomas doing it (even though he didn't actually make a statement of intent to retract any rights), yet applaud Eric, when he explicitly did exactly what you accuse Thomas of? Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 19:27:24 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA23639 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:27:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id QAA07615; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:12:06 -0700 (PDT) From: charles@krl.caltech.edu Message-Id: <9706022309.AA27117@regulus.krl.caltech.edu> Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:09:22 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <199706022110.RAA21396@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at Jun 2, 97 05:10:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1256 Lines: 26 > Unfortunately, this means that ncurses is not free software. > The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that > the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. Well, would a piece of software be considered free if you can use all of the code freely, and distribute it as you like, but you don't want anyone else to release a derivation under the same name? (I'm actually interested in this on-going debate because I'm planning on releasing a piece of software soon, which I want to make generally free, but I don't want something like this to happen where someone else releases it by the same name, and version numbers and the like get confused. But I have no problems if people change the code and release it as their own, as long as a. they change the name, and b. they still give me credit for the parts of the code which were mine.) [munch] > * There may be another good alternative, or at least one that is > better than nothing. Does anyone know? Eric, would you care if other people took over ncurses as long as they changed the name? Then you can keep the 'original' ncurses and there would simply be a split. You can find someone competent to take control of your distribution.... --- Charles From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Mon Jun 2 19:53:30 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id TAA02227 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:53:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id RAA08382 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:48:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAA08378 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:48:00 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA18328 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:47:55 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA02019; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:42:22 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706022342.TAA02019@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 To: seebs@solon.com (Peter Seebach) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:42:21 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706021807.NAA23391@solutions.solon.com> from "Peter Seebach" at Jun 2, 97 01:07:46 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1675 Lines: 32 Peter Seebach: > Look also at the *BSD's; we're up to three free versions of 4.4BSD, > which have split over issues like this. Yes, and look at the way the BSD community is getting steamrollered by Linux as a direct result. No thanks; the path of infinite splits over who gets to run things is a path to irrelevance. That is why the customs about project ownership that the free-software community has been evolving are important. The buck has to stop somewhere, and a functional equivalent of homesteading and "property" rights is the least onerous and fairest way to do it (of course we're not talking about property rights in a money-economy sense here). > The concern I mostly have here is that, in the other cases, the split > or divergence of views is marked by a name change. Perhaps Eric > should release encurses, or Tom should release dncurses? I've already said that this is not acceptable to me. I will not have my code under the authority of someone I believe will abuse it. I don't believe it's acceptable to Zeyd either. > In any event, I would say that there's ample evidence that splits can > and will survive, and it looks like this is a typical kind of thing > over which people split. Normally, this means that the "fork" chooses > a new name. I'm not sure which maintainer would be the "fork" in this > case; traditionally, the most active maintainers are the main branch, > and traditionally, the most senior maintainers are the main branch. And the most senior maintainers would *still* be the most active if Thomas hadn't driven both of us away in disgust with the hijacking. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 20:28:36 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA14465 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:28:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id RAA10419; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:17:12 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:23:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Cc: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts In-Reply-To: <199706022110.RAA21396@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 3535 Lines: 71 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Richard Stallman wrote: > The free software community is now in a hole. We need a good free > curses package for free operating systems, and the one we thought we > had, we do not have. I can see three possible ways we can come up > with one: That is a funny way of looking at it. We clearly ``have'' ncurses. I think that its restrictions are an advantage because the authors can exercise superior version and quality control. It prevents the ``too many chefs in the kitchen'' syndrome. > * ESR and Zeyd together can agree to permit distribution of modified > versions and thus make ncurses free software. I don't think they have ever had a problem with that; they just don't want to see patched version masquerading as ``official'' ncurses releases. If that is allowed to happen, chaos results. The user doesn't know what the heck he or she is getting. E&Z never objected to helpful patches, but to someone taking charge of the project. Assuming that T.E.D. is considered an equal developer, he only represents 33.3% vote---hardly a deciding majority in making decisions about the project such as what goes constitutes a release and when it should come out. Yet he has acted on his own as if he were competing with the others. This is not mature behavior. Let's face it, even the GPL does not allow rampant, ``invisible'' modification; the rules require that changes be clearly designated in the source file and marked with the modification date. This is a minor, but real restriction. I quote: Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations. And.... 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.) Whew! All these restrictions! Clearly if Ncurses _were_ under the GPL right now, T.E.D would still be in contravention, since he is purporting that his unofficial releases are in fact the real thing. Problems introduced in his changes do reflect on the reputations of E&Z. From rherbert@Interlink.NET Mon Jun 2 20:25:32 1997 Received: from mailhost.interlink.net (root@mailhost.interlink.net [198.168.54.58]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA13441 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:25:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from starbug.dom (rherbert@G2192.258.InterLink.NET [199.202.247.26]) by mailhost.interlink.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA01272; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:26:11 -0400 Received: from localhost (rherbert@localhost) by starbug.dom (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA00449; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:24:34 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:24:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Herbert Sender: rherbert@Interlink.NET To: "Eric S. Raymond" cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, kaz@cafe.net, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 In-Reply-To: <199706030000.UAA02274@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 726 Lines: 18 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: >And there it would end, in a deadlock, if it weren't for the fact that Zeyd >and I are copyright holders and Thomas is not. As RMS correctly points out, >and Kaz has established in detail, this means *our* desires in the matter >trump Thomas's in the eyes of the law. Man, talk about a poor signal to noise ratio. I guess I'll just unsubscribe for a while and go read the ncurses source while you guys hash this out. Too bad fetchmail works so well - I wish it would drop one or two of these diatribes (from all sides) from time to time. Or is that procmail's job? -- Richard Herbert If there's nothing wrong with me, then ... There must be something wrong with the Universe! From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 21:49:41 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA08896 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 21:49:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id SAA13227; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 18:40:45 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 21:40:34 -0400 Message-Id: <199706030140.VAA22416@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de CC: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <33934732.549C6E79@T-Online.de> (Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de) Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts References: <199706022110.RAA21396@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <33934732.549C6E79@T-Online.de> Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1143 Lines: 26 > a non-free program, even if legally permitted, does not advance our > mission. For my personal taste that's a bit too religious... This has nothing to do with how the universe was created or what happens to people when they die. It has to do with how people should treat each other--with politics and ethics. Of course, you know that. When you use the word "religious", you're saying that the matter is unimportant and that positions on it are not based on reason. I think this present situation is a powerful rational argument showing the importance of the freedom to make modified releases. It makes all the difference here. As an individual, deciding what to install on your own computer, you don't need to draw a clear line about what you'll accept. You don't need to draw a line at all. Each time you consider installing some program, you can do whatever you feel like. In other words, you can treat the question as if it were "religious". But a project to develop an operating system for general use needs to draw a clear line and stick to it. For the GNU project, this line is that we only use free software. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 22:23:17 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA19458 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:23:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id TAA14285; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:14:48 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:14:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek X-Sender: ac199@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: ncurses-list@netcom.com cc: ncurses-list@bsdi.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1623 Lines: 38 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Kaz Kylheku wrote: > On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Richard Stallman wrote: > > > The free software community is now in a hole. We need a good free > > curses package for free operating systems, and the one we thought we > > had, we do not have. I can see three possible ways we can come up > > with one: > > That is a funny way of looking at it. We clearly ``have'' ncurses. I think > that its restrictions are an advantage because the authors can exercise > superior version and quality control. It prevents the ``too many chefs in the > kitchen'' syndrome. Since this is possibly at least the 2nd reference to the multiplicity of *BSDs as a bad thing, I think I will say that, as a FreeBSD user and subscriber to it's -hackers and -current lists, having multiple *BSDs is not so terrible. What is terrible is the occasional catfights that develop between the groups, but not the (apparent) duplicity of effort. Patches _are_ shared. And, the benefits are that different groups can try different approaches/philosophies to problems. It has been suggested that the competition also encourages development -- for example, OpenBSD has made many security fixes and, I rather suspect that this is partly because they needed an (additional) gimmick to make them more attractive than their parent (NetBSD). I certainly think similar advantages could be had through multiple ncurses-based distributions. (And, in reference to ESR, the reasons that Linux has more users than *BSD are much more complex and numerous than simply having multiple groups). -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 2 22:31:29 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA22017 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:31:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id TAA14569; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:21:39 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:21:28 -0400 Message-Id: <199706030221.WAA22576@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: kaz@cafe.net CC: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com In-reply-to: (message from Kaz Kylheku on Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:23:24 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts References: Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1199 Lines: 28 That is a funny way of looking at it. We clearly ``have'' ncurses. If you don't mind using a non-free program, then you have ncurses. The GNU project can only use free software, and therefore ncurses is off limits for us, as long as its distribution terms are not changed. We have to look for an alternative. > * ESR and Zeyd together can agree to permit distribution of modified > versions and thus make ncurses free software. I don't think they have ever had a problem with that; The question I am talking about is not a matter of what someone feels or thinks; it is a matter what the distribution terms say. If the copyright holders of ncurses rerelease it with new distribution terms that give permission to release modified versions, then it will be free software. Otherwise it will not be. It is possible for free software distribution terms to require that modified versions be labeled as modified (and by whom). As you've noticed, the GPL has such a requirement. If ncurses too had such a requirement, it could still be free software. But that is not the present state of affairs. Right now, the ncurses distribution terms don't permit modified releases at all. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 3 12:32:29 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA24634 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 12:32:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id KAA16706 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 10:13:05 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id KAA16702 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 10:13:01 -0600 (MDT) Received: from giraffe.giraffe.netgate.net (root@giraffe.giraffe.netgate.net [205.214.175.8]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA22709 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 10:12:58 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from bryanh@localhost) by giraffe.giraffe.netgate.net (8.6.11/8.6.9) id TAA19932; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:42:15 -0700 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:42:15 -0700 Message-Id: <199706030242.TAA19932@giraffe.giraffe.netgate.net> From: bryanh@giraffe.netgate.net (Bryan Henderson) To: ncurses@bsdi.com In-reply-to: <199706021807.NAA23391@solutions.solon.com> (seebs@solon.com) Subject: Re: ncurses 4.1 Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 737 Lines: 15 My understanding of the hacker/free software tradition is that ESR and Zeyd have the right to ncurses name (think trademark) and to be given credit for any contribution (think plaigarism) they made to what Dickey distributes, but not to stop Dickey from using their code in his distribution (think traditional copyright). Of course, as a user I'd be disappointed to see ncurses efforts split between two forks, or to have to maintain two libraries to support all my applications, or for Dickey's version to be renamed while the old one just dies, but I think the fathers of ncurses have a right to have that happen if they should want to. -- Bryan Henderson Phone 415-428-7631 Los Altos, California From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 00:49:18 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id AAA01186 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:49:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id VAA18844; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 21:35:32 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:39:48 -0400 (EDT) Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 9445 Lines: 195 Recently we saw an excellent analysis of the copyright status of ncurses from Kaz Kylheku which, among other things, distinguishes correctly between "redistribution rights" and "adaptation rights". It cites U.S. law, and correctly enumerates those rights which the ncurses license gives away and those which it retains for the copyright holders. In a recent post, RMS belatedly discovered that the ncurses copyright *does* in fact permit Zeyd benHalim and myself to control modification of the software by Thomas Dickey or others. RMS then opined that this means ncurses is not "free software" and announced that he has deleted it from prep. He then worries that the free-software community is "in a hole" because there is no "free" alternative to ncurses. The simplest solution to RMS's problem would be to hand ncurses to the FSF and GPL it. At some future time, the present copyright holders may be willing to do that. Right now I have reservations about the LGPL which are not relevant to any of the ncurses issues but which are fairly strong; these foreclose the simple solution for the present. Instead I want to take on the issue of what constitutes "free software". Because I maintain that ncurses, even with the present license, *is* "free software", both in intent and effect. I applaud RMS's deletion of the rogue "4.1" distribution from prep, but I reject his reasons for doing it. RMS's position, the one the FSF is founded on and the GPL promotes, is that software is "free" only if its license grants unlimited rights (a) to reuse, (b) to redistribute, (c) to modify for personal use, and (d) to modify and then redistribute. In practice, the free software community at large has a less stringent definition. No one disputes that "free" implies (a), (b) and (c). As Kaz Kylheku correctly pointed out, the ncurses license explicitly grants (a) and (b), and implicitly grants (c). It is intended to make these grants. RMS correctly observes that the ncurses license does not grant (d), and says: >The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that >the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. I disagree. I say this requirement does not reflect common usage of the term "free software". Nor is it necessarily correct (these being two linked but semi-separate issues; common usage can be wrong). Nor is it instrumentally good. In connection with the "common usage" part, I want to start by pointing out that RMS's "hole" exists mostly in his imagination. The huge Linux community, and the smaller but significant SpinoffGroupOfTheWeekBSD communities, are going to go right on using ncurses whether FSF blesses its license terms or not. I doubt even RMS will seriously dispute this prediction. While the GPL is widely used in the Linux/BSD world, it is nowhere near universal, and RMS knows that. Because I maintain the Sunsite Linux archive and have written Perl to check the copyright lines in LSMs, I can even supply a ballpark figure. Somewhere around 1/7th of Sunsite's packages are under licenses more restrictive than GPL. Many of those licenses resemble those of ncurses, and the Linux/BSD community has no problem with that. In general, if community aims are advanced by software that doesn't happen to be GPLed but is under a sufficiently liberal license, the Linux/BSD crowd will be happy to call it "free software" and keep right on hacking. And the ncurses license is sufficiently liberal. In fact, the only significant group that will be unable to use ncurses is the FSF itself. Kind of ironic if you think about it. This takes us to the "correct" part... What do we mean by "sufficiently liberal"? In the wider free-software culture, use of the GPL is a tactical maneuver, not a dogma. Juergen Pfeifer was reflecting this attitude when he responded to RMS's pronunciamento by saying it's "too religious for me". The difference between RMS's attitude and Juergen's (which is also mine) comes down to a difference in underlying agendas. The FSF and the Linux/BSD community do not have quite the same goals. The FSF regards the "freeness" of software as an end in itself -- in the FSF view, *all* software should be free and "unfree" software is morally tainted. Their efforts tend to assume the grim, high-minded air of a religious or political crusade, all clenched fists and barricades. The Linux/BSD community's stance is more instrumental. In this view, the purpose of free software is to make sure hackers and other people will always have enough tools and toys to play with. And the purpose of the free-software culture is to have lots of fun, push the technical envelope, and play a non-zero-sum reputation game that everyone can win. In this more relaxed view of "free software", commercial software is not so much wrong as irrelevant. Individual products may earn resentment because they are shoddy and overhyped, or because the people who promote them are overweening assholes (or both, as in Microsoft OSs). But commercial software isn't intrinsically evil. Linus even says in his speeches, "commercial software can be OK, sometimes". GPL is just a means to an end, and there can be others, including ncurses-like licenses. But here's the key logical point: if "free" means "without restrictions", it means without *any* restrictions, even the GPL ones that forbid various forms of exclusively binary distribution and "hoarding". (There are many people who refuse to GPL for this reason. I'm *not* one of those myself, BTW.) By claiming that "free" means "with GPL restrictions and only GPL restrictions", RMS implicitly concedes that software can be "free" without granting unlimited rights to everybody for all time. But once he's gone this far, it is no longer possible for him to defend his definition of "free software" logically by making it a simple composition of the terms "free" and "software", because it isn't! This is what I meant by saying his usage is not correct. Instead, RMS's definition implies *acceptable kinds* of restrictions. Viewed in this way, RMS's attempt to corner the term "free software" for stuff with a license that includes the right to redistribute modified copies is really an attempt to set cultural norms by controlling semantic territory. But anybody can play that game. RMS is no more privileged at it than I am. He can argue for his restrictions, I can argue for mine, and whether you buy my definition of "free software" or his depends on what *you* want to accomplish by promoting "free software". Now for the part that will *really* annoy him :-(. Sigh... I will now argue that RMS's definition is instrumentally bad, in that we would all be worse off if we accepted it than if we accepted the weaker one implied in the ncurses license. The reason is reputation incentives. As I point out in "How to Become A Hacker" (http://www.ccil.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html) and my recent paper "The Cathedral And The Bazaar" from Linux Kongress '97 (http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html), the free-software community is what anthropologists call a "gift culture" and runs on reputation incentives. See those documents for detailed support. Briefly, hackers invest their reputations in their work. They hope to gain in reputation by doing successful projects. The reputation gain is important because people like their peers to think well of them, but it's even more important for a different reason. When your economy has no scarce goods and your politics has no real power relationships, gain or loss in reputation is the only kind of reality check available. The problem is that if "free software" includes a right to redistribute modified copies, the optimal strategy is hijacking and parasitism, not being original and productive. And the culture doesn't want that. The only thing that prevents these strategies from becoming endemic is a strong social consensus that, despite what the GPL says, authors and primary maintainers *own* their software. Forking live projects is wrong, or at least justified only by extraordinary circumstances and resorted to under extreme pressure. Even then it's frowned upon, and for the norms to be satisfied it has to be accompanied by extensive public self-justification (this explains apparent exceptions like XEmacs and the BSD splitoffs that actually prove the rule). This norm also serves the valuable purpose of minimizing the wasteful duplication of work. Most hackers half-consciously understand all this, which is why it's normal to pay lip service to the doctrinaire purity of the GPL while actually running freeware projects as if source code is a sort of intangible real estate homesteaded out of the noosphere, complete with ownership, "primary maintainers", seniority rights, and a chain of legitimate succession. This is also why, when people disagree with primary maintainers, they normally distribute patches rather than hacked source trees. It's a way of making your statement without violating the norms of succession. A free-software culture in which a right to redistribute modified code really were customary would have a much higher incidence of parasitism and duplication. It would be less productive than the one we have in practice. I'm planning to write a paper on all this called "Homesteading the Noosphere". -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 01:50:31 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA15728 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 01:50:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA19960; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:12:52 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:18:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts In-Reply-To: <199706030010.UAA02320@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2949 Lines: 57 On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:10:31 -0400 (EDT) > From: "Eric S. Raymond" > Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts > > Charles: > > Eric, would you care if other people took over ncurses as long as they > > changed the name? Then you can keep the 'original' ncurses and there would > > simply be a split. You can find someone competent to take control of your > > distribution.... > > I don't need to keep ncurses if I can release it to a successor I > trust. And I don't want there to be a split for reasons I've gone > into. > > But I *will not* allow any derivative of my code to remain under > Thomas Dickey's usurping authority, and that is final and not > negotiable. He's still under threat of being sued or jailed for > copyright violation under the Berne Convention if he tries, and I'm > not kidding about that. Now, now, I don't think that T. E. has done anything for which he could go to jail. In the U.S., copyright infringement is only a felony if you mass produce copies of something for commercial purposes. (I'm being glib here, but it's clear that Thomas has not committed felony! He hasn't even made a cent). Since this is a _published_ work that is _freely distributed_, I doubt that any plaintiff in a civil case could claim any real damages other than a wounded ego (I'm sure the lawyers can appraise the value of an ego very favorably!). Realistically, if this ever went to trial, Thomas could claim that what he was doing was ``fair use'' and probably get away with it. Even though what he is doing is not copying, there are numerous ``fair use'' exceptions to the reproductive rights that could serve as analogies for exceptions to the other rights (for example, you are allowed to make digital or analog copies of music recordings for your own use). Thomas could claim that he made productive modifications for the benefit of (and possibly the education of---that's a good one) the user community. According to the copyright FAQ, factors that may matter is whether the copying (in this case modifying) was productive or not. What will also be considered is whether the work in question was published or not (e.g. in the case of unauthorized copying, if the work in question had not been published, it points toward infringement more strongly than if the work has already been published). Consider how different things would be if ncurses was commercial software that had never been made available to any outsider in source form, and Thomas was a rogue partner in the software organization who made off with the software on a private venture. The way it is, you might be able to get a court order instructing Thomas to desist from making further ncurses releases. But I doubt that there would be any jail time or $$$ involved. Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about. :) From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 3 01:42:09 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA13861 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 01:42:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id XAA11674 for ncurses-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 23:18:25 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id XAA11670 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 23:18:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from cafe.net (root@espresso.cafe.net [204.244.119.1]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA05093 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 23:18:18 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (latte.cafe.net) by cafe.net with SMTP id AA29734 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:15:49 -0700 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:24:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Kaz Kylheku X-Sender: kaz@localhost To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1327 Lines: 29 On 2 Jun 1997, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Date: 02 Jun 1997 18:25:59 -0700 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" > Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > To: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com > Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts > > >>>>> "ESR" == Eric S Raymond writes: > > ESR> I don't need to keep ncurses if I can release it to a successor I trust. > > So when the new person comes along who manages the package in some way you > don't like, how can we be sure you won't want to shut her down too? Because that person will have been properly delegated the duty of maintaining the software. If you had been following the list for some time, you would have realized that Thomas tried to steer the project even while E&Z were active maintainers. He acted like a one-man majority, putting together releases whenever he felt like it. If you ran a software company, what would you do if some hot-shot programmer decided to make ad-hoc releases of the software and give them directly to the users, bypassing things like peer code review, testing, verification, version control and quality assurance? There is a difference between the maverick acting alone and the employee or group of employees who are delegated the roles of doing it according to proper procedures. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 02:08:01 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA19639 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:07:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA20915; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:55:43 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199706030555.WAA29613@gandalf.sigmasoft.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 03 Jun 1997 00:39:48 EDT." <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <29607.865317321.1@gandalf.sigmasoft.com> Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 22:55:21 -0700 From: Thorsten Lockert Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1581 Lines: 33 > >The freedom to distribute modified versions, including changes that > >the author does not like, is a crucial aspect of free software. > > I disagree. I say this requirement does not reflect common usage of > the term "free software". Nor is it necessarily correct (these being > two linked but semi-separate issues; common usage can be wrong). Nor > is it instrumentally good. > > In connection with the "common usage" part, I want to start by > pointing out that RMS's "hole" exists mostly in his imagination. The > huge Linux community, and the smaller but significant > SpinoffGroupOfTheWeekBSD communities, are going to go right on using > ncurses whether FSF blesses its license terms or not. I am not so certain about that; if it had a pure BSD license (which, like the GPL, allows redistributing changed versions, but does not have some of the GPL's other limitations), yes. Seeing now that it does not, I am not at all sure that OpenBSD will keep on distributing it, as we (or, actually, I) have made some changes to it that we felt were needed. > I doubt even RMS will seriously dispute this prediction. While the > GPL is widely used in the Linux/BSD world, it is nowhere near > universal, and RMS knows that. Indeed; we try to avoid using GPL code in OpenBSD (tho for some things that is not really feasible, eg. when it comes to GCC, GROFF etc.). Thorsten -- Thorsten Lockert | postmaster@sigmasoft.com | Universe, n.: 1238 Page Street #B | hostmaster@sigmasoft.com | The problem. San Francisco, CA 94117 | tholo@sigmasoft.com | From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 02:20:39 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA22152 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:20:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id XAA21410; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 23:13:55 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? References: <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> From: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: 02 Jun 1997 23:10:26 -0700 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message of Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:39:48 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 394 Lines: 10 >>>>> "ESR" == Eric S Raymond writes: ESR> The problem is that if "free software" includes a right to ESR> redistribute modified copies, the optimal strategy is hijacking ESR> and parasitism, not being original and productive. And the ESR> culture doesn't want that. Do you have evidence that ncurses development was lacking originality or that productivity was low? From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 03:19:23 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id DAA01367 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 03:19:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id AAA22789; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:05:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 03:04:53 -0400 Message-Id: <199706030704.DAA24382@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman to: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, ncurses-list@netcom.com cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: <199706030433.AAA03130@snark.thyrsus.com> (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) Subject: Re: What does "free software" mean? References: <199706030433.AAA03130@snark.thyrsus.com> Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1744 Lines: 37 It looks like Eric is trying to discourage people from getting together to write a free replacement for ncurses. I sent him a message yesterday, saying that he couldn't block an alternative curses project by force of law, and suggesting that he make it unnecessary, by making ncurses free. It looks like he's trying a third alternative: a self-fulfilling prophecy aimed at convincing people to give up. This is a method often used in politics. Someone predicts that just about everyone is going to join his side, so he simply has to win; and then he kindly advises you to be on the winning side. Only an silly idealist would reject such practical advice. If people believe the prophecy, and accept the advice, they can make it true. Or people can reject it and make it false. Eric also argues that freedom to share your changes with others is not important. As proof, he cites the many people who don't care about this freedom. Sheesh, with that kind of reasoning you could prove all freedom is unimportant. I figure that some people care about the freedom to share your changes, and some don't. You know how important this is to you. When the GNU project started, we had a whole Unix system to replace with free software. Ncurses is a small job by comparison. And if the replacement is good, it can become more popular than ncurses, even among people who don't care about freedom. So if you'd like to help develop a free replacement for ncurses, please send me mail. I can also post an announcement on GNU newsgroups--but that may not even be necessary. The precise distribution terms for this library will be decided by the people who do most of the work on it. It does not need to be copylefted; it just needs to be free. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 07:29:03 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id HAA03878 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 07:29:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id EAA11668; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 04:15:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Philippe De Muyter Message-Id: <199706031115.NAA15011@mail.macqel.be> Subject: ncurses future To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:15:30 +0200 (MET DST) In-Reply-To: <199706030704.DAA24382@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at Jun 3, 97 03:04:53 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 533 Lines: 13 Just a suggestion (note I sent you this privately, not on any list, but you may make the idea your own and use it if it suits you) : What if Thomas Dickey did not release ncurses-x.y releases, but (GPL) diffs against ncurses-1.9.9g to produce (let's call it so) gcurses-x.y. So ncurses-1.9.9g is clearly a work of esr and friends and the gcurses-x.y.diff is clearly a work of the rest of the world. Gradually maybe all the unfree ncurses-1.9.9g parts would be replaced. Hope this helps Philippe De Muyter (phdm@info.ucl.ac.be) From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 07:58:57 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id HAA09522 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 07:58:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id EAA13782; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 04:48:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Philippe De Muyter Message-Id: <199706031148.NAA15193@mail.macqel.be> Subject: Re: ncurses future To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:48:10 +0200 (MET DST) In-Reply-To: <199706031115.NAA15011@mail.macqel.be> from "Philippe De Muyter" at Jun 3, 97 01:15:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 172 Lines: 5 > > Just a suggestion (note I sent you this privately, not on any list, but you > may make the idea your own and use it if it suits you) : > Oops (Dumb mail software !) From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 08:17:02 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA13895 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id FAA14757; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 05:07:17 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <19970603135507.26120@knorke.saar.de> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:55:07 +0200 From: Florian La Roche To: Kaz Kylheku Cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.74 In-Reply-To: ; from Kaz Kylheku on Mon, Jun 02, 1997 at 10:24:30PM -0700 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 410 Lines: 9 > If you ran a software company, what would you do if some hot-shot > programmer decided to make ad-hoc releases of the software and give them > directly to the users, bypassing things like peer code review, testing, > verification, version control and quality assurance? These things did not happen without the snapshots by Thomas Dickey. He has done a very good job for the ncurses users. Florian La Roche From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 08:15:49 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA13569 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:15:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id FAA14506; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 05:02:57 -0700 (PDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Message-Id: <199706031202.IAA26555@clark.net> Subject: Re: ncurses future To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:02:02 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199706031148.NAA15193@mail.macqel.be> from "Philippe De Muyter" at Jun 3, 97 01:48:10 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 393 Lines: 14 > > > > > Just a suggestion (note I sent you this privately, not on any list, but you > > may make the idea your own and use it if it suits you) : > > > Oops (Dumb mail software !) that's ok - I caught the first one & replied to it (once or twice I've missed & replied to the netcom list ;-). Maybe it'll work out. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 11:06:05 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA17200 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:06:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id HAA23306; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 07:48:47 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706031355.JAA05258@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts To: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 09:55:59 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: from "Marcus G. Daniels" at Jun 2, 97 06:25:59 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 292 Lines: 7 Marcus G. Daniels: > So when the new person comes along who manages the package in some way you > don't like, how can we be sure you won't want to shut her down too? Because at that point Zeyd and I won't have the right to do it. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 11:44:56 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA04224 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:44:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA25087; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 08:18:04 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706031522.LAA05593@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What does "free software" mean? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:22:14 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses-list@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <199706030704.DAA24382@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Richard Stallman" at Jun 3, 97 03:04:53 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1016 Lines: 24 RMS: > It looks like Eric is trying to discourage people from getting > together to write a free replacement for ncurses. I sent him a > message yesterday, saying that he couldn't block an alternative curses > project by force of law, and suggesting that he make it unnecessary, > by making ncurses free. > > It looks like he's trying a third alternative: a self-fulfilling > prophecy aimed at convincing people to give up. This is a very peculiar interpretation of my remarks, and I must respectfully contest it. I would prefer that there not be multiple curses projects, because (a) duplication of work is wasteful and (b) having more than one project dilutes the incentives that would induce other developers to commit time to it. However, I have at no time suggested that I would try to use the law to prevent the FSF or anybody else from doing their own curses from scratch. Even Thomas Dickey could do that without a word of protest from me. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 12:37:20 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA26500 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 12:37:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA28239; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 09:01:56 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <19970603175005.27514@knorke.saar.de> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 17:50:05 +0200 From: Florian La Roche To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: A reminder about the facts References: <199706031355.JAA05258@snark.thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.74 In-Reply-To: <199706031355.JAA05258@snark.thyrsus.com>; from Eric S. Raymond on Tue, Jun 03, 1997 at 09:55:59AM -0400 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1389 Lines: 32 On Tue, Jun 03, 1997 at 09:55:59AM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Marcus G. Daniels: > > So when the new person comes along who manages the package in some way you > > don't like, how can we be sure you won't want to shut her down too? > > Because at that point Zeyd and I won't have the right to do it. > -- > Eric S. Raymond Would you immediately hand the sources to the new maintainer who could also immedialtely distribute them under GPL/BSD copyright license, or does the new maintainer have to work for you for a certain time until he can change the copyright status? When will things be decided? What is your exact point about the next maintainer? Is this ok: Code is immediately changed to BSD/GPL and I put together new beta packages for the next 1/2 year. During this time, I will also accept any patches from Thomas Dickey, but also from any other person, if the patches seem ok to me. (Though I don't see a real point in doing so. Thomas Dickey could just go on doing patches like he does right now. He is actually mainly the one doing the work right now.) But if you can explain me, why this setup would help you putting ncurses under GPL/BSD, I would be willing to spend some time on ncurses. If Thomas really prevents you from further developing ncurses, these things should help. Or don't they? Greetings, Florian La Roche From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 13:00:59 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA05560 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:00:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA02230; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 09:51:57 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? References: <199706031509.LAA05528@snark.thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.105) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Michael Alan Dorman Date: 03 Jun 1997 12:51:46 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message of Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:09:41 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <87910r8w9p.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> X-Mailer: Gnus v5.2.40/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2076 Lines: 47 "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > I think I can safely assert that neither Zeyd nor myself wants to > prevent OpenBSD from making necessary local adaptations. That is good. Unfortunately... > That we assert a right to control the redistribution of modified > versions does not mean we want to forbid all such modifications. > That reservation is not intended to hoard the code. Rather, it is > intended to prevent abuses like Thomas Dickey's. The existence of the provisions that allow you to forbid modifications is---to be dramatic---a loaded but uncocked gun held at the head of projects like Debian or OpenBSD. You have just assured us that you would never fire it, because you like us, but until you throw away the gun, we have no guarantee of safety, and the fact that you have just recently fired this gun, I hope you understand, might give people reason to contemplate the origin of the term "gun-shy". As the former Debian maintainer for ncurses, I can state that I am unwilling to take the risk associated with releasing modifications without an unequivocal guarantee that I would not be legally liable. And the current license does not give me that guarantee, as your actions against Tom Dickey have displayed. So, whatever my opinions about the current dustup, the simple fact is that your license *does* make it unattractive for organizations that do not want to incur the possibility of legal action to use ncurses. And the only thing you could reasonably do to remove this issue would then make it perfectly legal for Tom Dickey to fork an ncurses distribution. You also have to factor in that special licensing for Debian would not be adequate, because the Debian wants to be able to be used as a basis for other, more specialised projects, so we must be able to pass that modification right on to others. Moreover, what would happen if Tom Dickey sent patches to the Debian maintainer, and then suggested to people that they pick up the Debian package, instead of your distribution... So, how do you resolve this problem? Mike. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed Jun 4 06:35:46 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id GAA08972 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 06:35:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id MAA18068 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 12:30:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id MAA18064 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 12:30:38 -0600 (MDT) Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA05388 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 12:30:36 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id LAA08376; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:29:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans Reply-To: Jason Evans To: ncurses-list@netcom.com cc: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@prep.ai.mit.edu Subject: New curses project (gcurses) In-Reply-To: <199706030439.AAA03169@snark.thyrsus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 4277 Lines: 88 The actions of Eric Raymond on the ncurses list over the past several days have demonstrated that ncurses is not free. It has strings attached, in that if Raymond doesn't like you, your ability to use the library is severely limited. You cannot make your own version and redistribute it. This in itself makes ncurses a crippled library for many OS platforms. For the above reason, I am beginning a new curses clone, tentatively named gcurses. This library will be released under the GNU GPL/LGPL, and when sufficiently mature, the copyright will be assigned to the FSF. Any substantial contributions from others will (unfortunate evil here) require copyright assignment. ncurses is not even close to free. The GPL won't make gcurses totally free either, according to Raymond's defintion. The key problem with ncurses though is that it isn't free enough. gcurses will be. gcurses will be prone to splits and hijacking, according to Raymond. This is not a concern for me, for two reasons: 1) Every long-lived split I can think of has had definite benefits to the software community. 2) Unlike Raymond, I'm more concerned about producing a useable curses library than I am about my ego. If Dickey runs off and makes his own gcurses distribution, more power to him. In the end, I'll be content, because there will be a useable, sufficiently free curses library. If you are interested in helping with gcurses, please contact me. With proper coordination and willing people, gcurses can soon be a working reality. Sincerely, Jason Evans Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] Following are a few comments on Raymond's free software theology. *************************************************************************** On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > The simplest solution to RMS's problem would be to hand ncurses to the > FSF and GPL it. At some future time, the present copyright holders > may be willing to do that. Right now I have reservations about > the LGPL which are not relevant to any of the ncurses issues but > which are fairly strong; these foreclose the simple solution for > the present. If you, or whoever you delegate ncurses rights to, makes the decision (to assign the FSF the ncurses copyrights) soon, it will save me a lot of time, reduce software fragmentation, and generally make a lot of people happy to use ncurses. If ncurses is never made freely modifiable and redistributable, then most likely, ncurses will eventually fade away. > In connection with the "common usage" part, I want to start by > pointing out that RMS's "hole" exists mostly in his imagination. The > huge Linux community, and the smaller but significant > SpinoffGroupOfTheWeekBSD communities, are going to go right on using > ncurses whether FSF blesses its license terms or not. The user community may be willing to deal with ncurses for the moment, but only because they don't have any better alternatives. I doubt there are many people who prefer your license to one similar to the Berkeley or GPL/LGPL licences. > I will now argue that RMS's definition is instrumentally bad, in that > we would all be worse off if we accepted it than if we accepted the > weaker one implied in the ncurses license. > > The reason is reputation incentives. ... ... > This norm also serves the valuable purpose of minimizing the > wasteful duplication of work. This would possibly be true, if only ncurses were a unique entity, without a standard interface, and not a part of the standard Unix platform. However, as it stands, if we, those of the free (not your definition) software community, continue to rely on ncurses, you have a strangle hold on an important part of the system we rely on. This is an unacceptable risk. You have the power to fix this whole problem, but you're too caught up with "reputation incentives". In light of your handling of ncurses, your reputation is severely tainted in my eyes. You have amply demonstrated that scoring "reputation points" is more important to you than the needs and interests of those who would find your software beneficial. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 18:22:13 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA19283 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 18:22:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA22731; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:09:12 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706032213.SAA07286@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 18:13:19 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <87910r8w9p.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> from "Michael Alan Dorman" at Jun 3, 97 12:51:46 pm Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 4005 Lines: 84 > "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > > I think I can safely assert that neither Zeyd nor myself wants to > > prevent OpenBSD from making necessary local adaptations. > > That is good. Unfortunately... > > > That we assert a right to control the redistribution of modified > > versions does not mean we want to forbid all such modifications. > > That reservation is not intended to hoard the code. Rather, it is > > intended to prevent abuses like Thomas Dickey's. > > The existence of the provisions that allow you to forbid modifications > is---to be dramatic---a loaded but uncocked gun held at the head of > projects like Debian or OpenBSD. I understand why you might feel that way. But I also see an inconsistency. If this is such a deal-breaker for Debian, then why do its guidelines say: > The Debian Free Software Guidelines > > 1. The software may be redistributed by anyone. The license may restrict > a source file from being distributed in modified form, as long as it > allows modified binary files, and files that are distributed along > with the source for the express purpose of modifying the source. It appears to me that this paragraph specifically *permits* licenses like that of ncurses. In fact I don't see how it could have been written with any other intention in mind. > You have just assured us that you would never fire it, because you > like us, but until you throw away the gun, we have no guarantee of > safety, and the fact that you have just recently fired this gun, I > hope you understand, might give people reason to contemplate the > origin of the term "gun-shy". I can certainly sympathize with this position. To alleviate your unease I can only point to my long record of service and cooperation in the free software community. That ought to count for something. If you can't trust me, we'd better *all* give up and go home. > As the former Debian maintainer for ncurses, I can state that I am > unwilling to take the risk associated with releasing modifications > without an unequivocal guarantee that I would not be legally liable. > And the current license does not give me that guarantee, as your > actions against Tom Dickey have displayed. > > So, whatever my opinions about the current dustup, the simple fact is > that your license *does* make it unattractive for organizations that > do not want to incur the possibility of legal action to use ncurses. > > And the only thing you could reasonably do to remove this issue would > then make it perfectly legal for Tom Dickey to fork an ncurses > distribution. I must respectfully differ with this assessment. The Debian guidelines imply the possibility of an ncurses-like license which allows maintainers a veto on modified distributions, while explicitly granting system integrators a non-revocable right to apply local patches as long as a pristine source tree is present. > You also have to factor in that special licensing for Debian would not > be adequate, because the Debian wants to be able to be used as a basis > for other, more specialised projects, so we must be able to pass that > modification right on to others. I accept this argument. > Moreover, what would happen if Tom Dickey sent patches to the Debian > maintainer, and then suggested to people that they pick up the Debian > package, instead of your distribution... I am willing to trust the community's judgement, and compete with him on that basis if need be. The key thing that the Debian guidelines have shown me is a way to craft a license which both preserves the rights of authors to veto modified distributions, *and* which provides legal security to system integrators making local modifications. This is a win-win situation -- a licensing style that I would not merely tolerate for the sake of ending the crisis, but actually feel happy about afterwards. I suggest we explore the possibility of such a formula. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 18:52:02 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA26453 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 18:51:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id PAA24979; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:39:47 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: [marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels)] Re: What is "free software"? References: <199706032012.QAA06863@snark.thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.105) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Michael Alan Dorman Date: 03 Jun 1997 18:39:22 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message of Tue, 3 Jun 1997 16:12:01 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <87vi3v5n1h.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> X-Mailer: Gnus v5.2.40/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 445 Lines: 11 "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > Michael Alan Dorman writes: > > Do not use my good name for your own ends. That is dastardly. > Ah. Perhaps you now understand why I'm pissed off at Thomas Dickey. > Not so nice when it happens to *you*, is it? As I believe I've stated elsewhere, I would not have made the comment I made if I had not been under a mistaken impression of the license under which ncurses was released. Mike. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 3 20:02:31 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA12266 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:02:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id QAA28986; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 16:51:54 -0700 (PDT) To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? References: <199706032213.SAA07286@snark.thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.105) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Michael Alan Dorman Date: 03 Jun 1997 19:51:37 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message of Tue, 3 Jun 1997 18:13:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <87lo4rdz3q.fsf@calder.med.miami.edu> X-Mailer: Gnus v5.2.40/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 2382 Lines: 48 "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > I understand why you might feel that way. But I also see an inconsistency. > If this is such a deal-breaker for Debian, then why do its guidelines say: > > > The Debian Free Software Guidelines > > > > 1. The software may be redistributed by anyone. The license may restrict > > a source file from being distributed in modified form, as long as it > > allows modified binary files, and files that are distributed along > > with the source for the express purpose of modifying the source. > > It appears to me that this paragraph specifically *permits* licenses > like that of ncurses. In fact I don't see how it could have been > written with any other intention in mind. Well, I've got to agree. I can only say I neither wrote nor sent the document, so it isn't entirely reasonable to ask me to explain it. When I've been speaking ex cathedra for Debian, it's been from what I think is a fair familiarity with the "ground rules". The document Bruce sent you is relatively new, and I've not had an opportunity to find out where it might diverge from my perception of custom. > The key thing that the Debian guidelines have shown me is a way to > craft a license which both preserves the rights of authors to veto > modified distributions, *and* which provides legal security to > system integrators making local modifications. This is a win-win > situation -- a licensing style that I would not merely tolerate for > the sake of ending the crisis, but actually feel happy about > afterwards. I think this is probably reasonable, though I would of course ask you to be liberal when laying out what you consider to be "local modifications". Although it is not, and has not been, the case with ncurses, some Debian packages do include significant modifications, for various reasons---it might be an extensive patch that fixes a security hole but hasn't been integrated upstream, or compatability hacks for a new libc, or the integration of a feature from someone else that hasn't---and possibly might never be---accepted by the upstream maintainer. *I*, not in any way speaking for Debian, would be reluctant to endorse a license that didn't give integrators a lot of leeway to make these decisions. Especially if your intent is to have this serve as a comprehensive alternative to the GPL and/or LGPL. Mike. From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 3 22:31:56 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA11941 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 22:31:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id UAA21677 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:12:02 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id UAA21673 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:11:58 -0600 (MDT) Received: from solutions.solon.com (root@solutions.solon.com [192.129.84.3]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA03248 for ; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:11:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from seebs@localhost) by solutions.solon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA06471 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:11:53 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:11:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706040211.VAA06471@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: A bit premature, but I suppose I should ask... Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1857 Lines: 41 A note: This is *entirely hypothetical*. There is a possibility that I will end up, in the short-term future (perhaps a month, maybe-more-maybe-less) with a few extra hours a week, and no longer in a programming job. If this happens, I'll be looking for a way to get some programming credibility, and I'll have some free time, and I'll be looking for a project. While a lot of my personal projects look neat, ncurses looks to be in need of a maintainer that not everyone hates yet. I would like to know if any of the principals in this dispute would have any strong objections to me becoming a maintainer, and/or the "official" primary maintainer/copyright holder. I would ideally like to prevent splits, by encouraging people to contribute fixes and enhancements. I would like to see ncurses under one of the free licenses. My current preferences are BSD and Artistic, but I could be persuaded to consider LGPL. My main interest would be in preventing a lot of redundant work going into two, three, or more versions of curses. I just submitted a bug fix for 4.4BSD curses last week, and I'd rather it be the last. A freely distributable, stable, version of ncurses would be a Very Good Thing, and the thing it seems ncurses needs most right now is a bit of "enlightened politics", and a party that no one will feel constrained to sue. I will not attempt to force this on anyone; however, if you are likely to object to me as a maintainer, *PLEASE SAY SO NOW*. Don't let me get two weeks into the project (if the primary folks decide they think I'm good for this), then suddenly throw up your hands in disgust at this greenhorn pedant and go fork your own distribution, or start a new one. Save that for next year. :) -s p.s.: Qualifications available on request. Mostly, I know C, and I'm fairly easy to get along with, and I use curses. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 10:55:42 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA13786 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 10:55:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id HAA17920; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 07:44:43 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706041449.KAA11331@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What is "free software"? To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 10:49:12 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <12093.865430450@foxharp.boston.ma.us> from "Paul Fox" at Jun 4, 97 09:20:50 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1248 Lines: 28 Paul Fox: > BTW, i see that the file "ncurses.lsm" that accompanies 1.9.9 releases, > and which appears in ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses > states: > > Copying-policy: BSD-like. > > this is clearly _not_ the case, and is extremely misleading, since although > most people have a good idea, via common practice, of what their rights > are under a "BSD-like" Copyright, far fewer will note the omission of those > crucial few words allowing modification from the ncurses license. > > in addition, the ANNOUNCE file that accompanies ncurses calls the software > "freeware", another fairly loaded term. > > imo, if the Eric and Zeyd wish to retain rigid control over their products, > they should be more rigourous and up front about stating that policy in the > first place. You are correct, and I apologize on behalf of Zeyd and myself. The "BSD-like" in the LSM was an error. I'm not even sure how it got in there. I think this is about to become a historical issue, however. If (as now seems likely) Peter Seebach takes over as primary maintainer and is assigned copyright, the new distribution will ship with his choice of license (which I believe is BSD). -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 4 16:09:53 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA15729 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 16:09:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id MAA08284; Wed, 4 Jun 1997 12:44:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3395C525.B3D09DA4@T-Online.de> Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 21:42:29 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Eric S. Raymond" , ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses-list@bsdi.com Subject: Re: What is "free software"? X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199706041449.KAA11331@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1165 Lines: 24 Eric S. Raymond wrote: > I think this is about to become a historical issue, however. If (as now > seems likely) Peter Seebach takes over as primary maintainer and is assigned > copyright, the new distribution will ship with his choice of license (which > I believe is BSD). Eric, is this a commitment? Do you assign copyright to Peter? When? What's about the other volunteers for a primary maintainer (Florian LaRoche and Jason Evans)? If all that doesn't come very fast to a good end, I'll take my code and contribute it to a really free ?curses project. I encourage all interested people to start a new free curses clone if there is no conclusion about a change of the ncurses status until Friday the 13th of June. In this case I'll take the responsibility to coordinate a group of developers doing this job in record time pissing ncurses out of the scene. I ask volunteers to send me an EMail. And I will do that without wasting time about a discussion what "free" means. I'm quite pragmatic about that. It must mean that you can do with the code what you want as long as you don't erase the name of the authors and you mark any changes you did. Juergen From lav@video.yars.free.net Sun Jun 8 03:38:29 1997 Received: from video.yars.free.net (video.yars.free.net [193.233.48.74]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id DAA12436 for ; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 03:38:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from lav@localhost) by video.yars.free.net (8.8.5/8.8.2) id LAA10251; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 11:37:43 +0400 (MSD) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 11:37:43 +0400 (MSD) From: "Alexander V. Lukyanov" Message-Id: <199706080737.LAA10251@video.yars.free.net> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Cc: dickey@clark.net Subject: one more bug in doupdate Status: RO Content-Length: 745 Lines: 22 This one is the reason why some Thomas' tests show great output volume compared with non-hashmap version - non-hashmap one uses scrolling in that cases and thus this wrong branch was not executed. --- lib_doupdate.c.2 Sat Jun 7 23:21:41 1997 +++ lib_doupdate.c Sun Jun 8 02:20:51 1997 @@ -978,11 +978,11 @@ nLastChar--; if((nLastChar == firstChar) - && (SP->_el_cost < (screen_columns - nLastChar))) { + && (SP->_el_cost < (oLastChar - nLastChar))) { GoTo(lineno, firstChar); - ClrToEOL(blank); if(newLine[firstChar] != blank ) PutChar(newLine[firstChar]); + ClrToEOL(blank); } else if( newLine[nLastChar] != oldLine[oLastChar] || !(_nc_idcok && has_ic()) ) { GoTo(lineno, firstChar); Alexander. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Thu Jun 12 11:49:20 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA20156 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:49:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id IAA00379; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:29:18 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:28:44 -0500 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com From: Ward Horner Subject: how to compile in a terminfo entry Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 938 Lines: 34 I want to be able to fallback on a vt100 terminfo entry, in case the terminfo database is not present. How do I compile into my program such an object? To start my program I default the terminal type to vt100 like this: #define DEFAULT_TERM "vt100" #define TERM_ENV_VAR "TERM" /* get TERM environment var or set default */ if ((name = getenv (TERM_ENV_VAR)) == NULL) name = DEFAULT_TERM; /* start ncurses on stdio terminal */ if (newterm (name, stdout, stdin) == NULL) return (ERR); What I want to do is to fall back to a vt100 terminfo entry that has been included in this program, if newterm() returns a error. Ward Horner ----- Ward Horner Principal Software Engineer 410-872-3954 TSI Telsys, Inc. 410-872-3901 (fax) 7100 Columbia Gateway Drive whorner@tsi-telsys.com Columbia, MD 21046 http://www.tsi-telsys.com --> The Future of Reconfigurable Computing Begins Here! <-- From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Thu Jun 12 21:07:15 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id VAA12512 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 21:07:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id SAA03642 for ncurses-outgoing; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:56:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAB01829 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:36:23 -0600 (MDT) Received: from solutions.solon.com (root@solutions.solon.com [192.129.84.3]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA26411 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:12:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from seebs@localhost) by solutions.solon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA21164 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:12:39 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:12:39 -0500 (CDT) From: Peter Seebach Message-Id: <199706121912.OAA21164@solutions.solon.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Maintainers... Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 152 Lines: 5 So, where are we? Do we have a maintainer? If not, would whoever was resisting Juergen be willing to accept him, to avoid a split in the project? -s From jasone@leo.mrc.uidaho.edu Fri Jun 13 17:09:51 1997 Received: from leo.mrc.uidaho.edu (leo.mrc.uidaho.edu [129.101.53.70]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA07570 for ; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 17:09:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (jasone@localhost) by leo.mrc.uidaho.edu with SMTP (8.7.6/8.7.1) id OAA08134; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:09:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:09:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Jason Evans To: Juergen Pfeifer cc: "Eric S. Raymond" , "Thomas E. Dickey" , ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu, bostic@bsdi.com Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer In-Reply-To: <3395E7A5.FA111FFD@T-Online.de> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Content-Length: 1580 Lines: 42 On Thu, 5 Jun 1997, Juergen Pfeifer wrote: > Summary of my position: > > First and preferred option: > > I'll take the role of the primary maintainer for ncurses under these > conditions: > > - There is a public agreement from Eric and Zeyd > - They transfer the copyright to me > - I'll distribute ncurses BSD like (or under LGPL if that is > what the community wants) > - The decision will be made until June,13th > - I'll take the job immediately after the decision. There is no > "test phase" monitored by Eric, there is no way to revert the > decision for Eric. > - Someone provides write-access to a large enough ftp account > > Second option: > > One of the other (P. Seebach, F. LaRoche, J. Evans) becomes > the primary maintainer. This should be decided also until June, 13th. > Again there should be no "backdoor" to revert the decision. > > Third option: > > The situation with ncurses is not resolved until June,13th. In this > case I'll stop contributing to ncurses and participate in a new > project to get a free curses clone for the community. I'll then act > as a coordinator to get this project on the road, later on the question > who will maintain this project can be decided. Here we are, it's June 13. Things have been quiet lately... What is it going to be -- ncurses or a new project to replace it? Jason Jason Evans: [MRC System Administrator] e-mail: [jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu] office phone: [(208) 885-7226] home phone: [(208) 882-6745] quote: ["Invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison] From dickey Fri Jun 13 17:54:21 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu (Jason Evans) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 17:54:21 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de (Juergen Pfeifer), bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic) In-Reply-To: from "Jason Evans" at Jun 13, 97 02:09:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 497 Lines: 12 > Here we are, it's June 13. Things have been quiet lately... What is it > going to be -- ncurses or a new project to replace it? I'm not sure yet - we (I and Juergen) have gotten mail from Keith and Florian indicating that they're getting agreement from Eric & Zeyd, but I'm left with an impression that one or both of them does not respond rapidly to email, so it's tentative (best not to post anything until Keith does). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu Fri Jun 13 18:48:07 1997 Received: from psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (rms@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.62]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id SAA04479 for ; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 18:48:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: by psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id SAA31949; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 18:29:59 -0400 Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 18:29:59 -0400 Message-Id: <199706132229.SAA31949@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> From: Richard Stallman To: jasone@mrc.uidaho.edu CC: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de, esr@snark.thyrsus.com, dickey@clark.net, ncurses-list@netcom.com, ncurses@bsdi.com, bostic@bsdi.com, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu In-reply-to: (message from Jason Evans on Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:09:53 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer References: Status: RO Content-Length: 302 Lines: 6 I think people have all agreed on Florian LaRoche as the new maintainer, and to transfer the copyright to the FSF. This can't be done overnight, but I think it should be doable in a couple of weeks. So I would urge you to be patient and let the right thing happen, rather than declaring failure now. From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Sat Jun 14 10:48:47 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA26659 for ; Sat, 14 Jun 1997 10:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id HAA17024; Sat, 14 Jun 1997 07:41:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <33A2A9B9.1A25FD4C@T-Online.de> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 16:24:57 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5C (X11; I; Linux 2.0.30 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199706132229.SAA31949@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Sender: 06162912249-0001@t-online.de (Juergen u. Inga Pfeifer) From: Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 491 Lines: 14 Richard Stallman wrote: > > I think people have all agreed on Florian LaRoche as the new > maintainer, and to transfer the copyright to the FSF. This can't be > done overnight, but I think it should be doable in a couple of weeks. > > So I would urge you to be patient and let the right thing happen, > rather than declaring failure now. Agreed. BTW: thanks a lot for your involvement in this kindergarten game. That helps a lot. Juergen -- http://home.t-online.de/home/Juergen.Pfeifer From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Mon Jun 16 15:28:34 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id PAA01366 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 15:28:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id LAA11538; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 11:51:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 11:28:45 -0400 Message-Id: <199706161528.LAA25725@linuxfs1.cs.fsu.edu> From: Jason Pfeil MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: Re: Primary ncurses maintainer In-Reply-To: <199706141530.LAA05165@netcom6.netcom.com> References: <33A2A9B9.1A25FD4C@T-Online.de> <199706141530.LAA05165@netcom6.netcom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.30 under Emacs 19.34.1 Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1261 Lines: 31 Double Amen! Stan Brown writes: > > > > Richard Stallman wrote: > > > > > > I think people have all agreed on Florian LaRoche as the new > > > maintainer, and to transfer the copyright to the FSF. This can't be > > > done overnight, but I think it should be doable in a couple of weeks. > > > > > > So I would urge you to be patient and let the right thing happen, > > > rather than declaring failure now. > > Agreed. BTW: thanks a lot for your involvement in this kindergarten > > game. That helps a lot. > > Juergen > > Amen! > > -- > Stan Brown stanb@netcom.com 404-996-6955 > Factory Automation Systems > Atlanta Ga. > -- > Look, look, see Windows 95. Buy, lemmings, buy! > Pay no attention to that cliff ahead... Henry Spencer > (c) 1997 Stan Brown. Redistribution via the Microsoft Network is prohibited.-- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Jason A. Pfeil pfeil@cs.fsu.edu http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~pfeil FSU Computer Science Dept. System Administrator "Search Engines are a great way to find out-of-date information." +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Fri Jun 20 23:05:08 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA03275 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:05:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id TAA21160; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 19:57:26 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 19:57:24 -0700 From: zmbenhal@majordomo.netcom.com (Zeyd M. Ben-Halim) Message-Id: <199706210257.TAA23858@netcom13.netcom.com> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Subject: ncurses-list going off-line Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 227 Lines: 10 Please note that ncurses-list on netcom.com is going off-line. If you are not already on the news list at bsdi.com, send email to: ncurses-request@mailgate.bsdi.com with a message containing: subscribe From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 24 11:46:15 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id LAA09478 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 11:46:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id JAA03212 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:36:12 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id JAA03208 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:36:09 -0600 (MDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA03212 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:36:07 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from jkh@localhost) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) id IAA28634 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:36:25 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:36:25 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Message-Id: <199706241536.IAA28634@time.cdrom.com> To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: What's the status of ncurses now? Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1256 Lines: 25 Over in the FreeBSD camp, we're hearing all kinds of horror stories of disputed copyrights and worse, so I figured I'd come over here and ask a group of folks a little closer to the source. There has also been some concern expressed about the direction in which ncurses appears to be going - more and more features which deviate a fair bit from the original "curses mandate" to provide a straight-forward screen I/O library, the most complex object in which would be the "window" and anything else being layered on top (in a different library). Now that forms and menus and such have appeared, it almost seems as if this layering has been violated somewhat, and rather than trying to creeping-featurize ncurses it seems (IMHO) a far better course to simply start developing another, entirely independant, library of CUI objects. Perhaps something along similar lines to what TurboVision did could be contemplated, now having moved from DOS to being a client of ncurses turbovision provides a rather sexy collection of advanced CUI objects (albeit for the evil C++) and perhaps something of the same sort could be done for the C programmer. Just in a separate library, please. ;-) Anyway, thanking you folks in advance for any feedback.. Jordan From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Tue Jun 24 12:14:58 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA20946 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 12:14:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id JAA19768; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:01:02 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199706241653.KAA06495@buzon> From: "Israel Zavalza" To: Subject: How to unsuscribe contanet@andromeda.tectel.com.mx Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 10:54:23 -0600 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1759 Lines: 48 ---------- > From: Error-Handlerby way of Ruben Tapia > To: izavalza@buzon.contanet.mx > Subject: Netscape Mail Server message notification > Date: martes 24 de junio de 1997 9:49 > > The mail system on andromeda.tectel.com.mx encountered the following error: > > The following destination addresses were unknown (please check > the addresses and re-mail the message): > > > SMTP > > The original mail envelope addresses are: > > User-From: SMTP > Recipient: [] > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > The message was submitted on Mon, 23 Jun 1997 13:12:10 -0500 > by host listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105] > > The original message header is below: > > -> Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) > -> by andromeda.tectel.com.mx (Netscape Mail Server v2.0) with ESMTP > -> id AAA852 for ; > -> Mon, 23 Jun 1997 13:12:10 -0500 > -> Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id > JAA21055; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 09:59:29 -0700 (PDT) > -> Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 15:52:43 -0700 > -> Message-Id: <199706222252.PAA25579@giraffe.giraffe.netgate.net> > -> From: bryanh@giraffe.netgate.net (Bryan Henderson) > -> To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > -> In-reply-to: <33ABA1D8.8AF5DCEA@T-Online.de> (Juergen.Pfeifer@T-Online.de) > -> Subject: Re: ncurses menu library doesn't match SYSV > -> Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com > -> Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com > -> Precedence: bulk > -> Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com > From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 24 17:37:39 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA01537 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:37:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id PAA06364 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:31:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id PAA06360 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:31:17 -0600 (MDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21149 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:31:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA17592; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 14:30:56 -0700 (PDT) To: "Eric S. Raymond" cc: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: What's the status of ncurses now? In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:33:10 EDT." <199706242133.RAA18718@snark.thyrsus.com> Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 14:30:54 -0700 Message-ID: <17586.867187854@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 492 Lines: 14 > We have a new primary maintainer and a plan to resolve the copyright > problem. Pleased to hear that, thanks. > The forms, menus, and panels features are separate libraries which > don't creeping-featurize the base curses library at all (in fact, that > is the reason they are separate libraries). My mistake then - I was operating under the bogus impression that this had all been merged into one monolithic library, and I'm quite happy to have been proven wrong here. :) Jordan From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Tue Jun 24 17:40:05 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA02645 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:40:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id PAA06347 for ncurses-outgoing; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:29:03 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id PAA06343 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:29:01 -0600 (MDT) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21009 for ; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:28:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA18718; Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:33:10 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199706242133.RAA18718@snark.thyrsus.com> Subject: Re: What's the status of ncurses now? To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:33:10 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com In-Reply-To: <199706241536.IAA28634@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Jun 24, 97 08:36:25 am Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Content-Type: text Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 1656 Lines: 35 > Over in the FreeBSD camp, we're hearing all kinds of horror stories > of disputed copyrights and worse, so I figured I'd come over here > and ask a group of folks a little closer to the source. We have a new primary maintainer and a plan to resolve the copyright problem. > There has also been some concern expressed about the direction in > which ncurses appears to be going - more and more features which > deviate a fair bit from the original "curses mandate" to provide a > straight-forward screen I/O library, the most complex object in > which would be the "window" and anything else being layered on top > (in a different library). I don't see that we've deviated from the original "mandate" at all. True, we support processing of mouse input events under xterm, and have a few option entry points not present in SVr4, and have C++ and Ada bindings. But designers are free to ignore all that and see a straight XSI- or SVr4-compatible curses library. > Now that forms and menus and such have appeared, it almost seems as > if this layering has been violated somewhat, and rather than trying to > creeping-featurize ncurses it seems (IMHO) a far better course to simply > start developing another, entirely independant, library of CUI objects. The forms, menus, and panels features are separate libraries which don't creeping-featurize the base curses library at all (in fact, that is the reason they are separate libraries). In this as in other design decisions we hew pretty strictly to the SVr4 API. Except we do much better cursor-movement and screen-update optimization. -- Eric S. Raymond From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed Jun 25 10:28:00 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA18513 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 10:28:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id IAA11331 for ncurses-outgoing; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:23:51 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id IAA11327 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:23:49 -0600 (MDT) Received: from knorke.saar.de (florian@knorke.saar.de [193.141.107.138]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA24224 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:23:45 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from florian@localhost) by knorke.saar.de (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA27095; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 16:23:31 +0200 Message-ID: <19970625162330.01406@knorke.saar.de> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 16:23:30 +0200 From: Florian La Roche To: Ward Horner Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: What's the status of ncurses now? References: <199706241536.IAA28634@time.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.74 In-Reply-To: ; from Ward Horner on Wed, Jun 25, 1997 at 10:01:33AM -0500 Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 448 Lines: 13 > >We have a new primary maintainer and a plan to resolve the copyright > >problem. Seems like I am the new maintainer. But copyright issues still take some time. Starting point is the newest source from Thomas Dickey. I hope that I won't stop Thomas Dickey from doing his work on ncurses. I will just try to bring the different developers together and ensure that all of them can submit patches and do their own work. Thanks, Florian La Roche From owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Wed Jun 25 10:47:34 1997 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA25817 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 10:47:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id HAA25896; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 07:33:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: X-Aliased: From olga@opal.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE (Johannes Leveling) From: "Johannes Leveling" Subject: Re: extension-languages and ncurses To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 16:33:36 +0200 (MET DST) In-Reply-To: from "Klaus Schilling" at Jun 18, 97 11:06:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-ncurses-list@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Status: RO Content-Length: 1794 Lines: 25 > > what are atm the free extension-languages with the best support for/ interface to the ncurses-library? > As far as i know, there is no macro-language with a standard interface to ncurses. Python has a half-the way standard interface to curses (not compiled in by default) that can be used with ncurses. Perl5 has some modules for curses-support that are yet far from being standard, and W.Setzer seems to work on an improved interface to ncurses. Tcl seems not to be interested in character-cell-fullscreen-api's and stopped all former attempts to write an interface of tcl to curses. Emacs seems to have incorporated a ncurses -interface in its latest versions, but it's somehow obscured. According to J.Blandy, for guile-scheme, Stallman's favorite extension language,there's not been written yet a package to access ncurses, though it should be a simple, just time-intensive straight programming task. > Anyone know more about activities in that directions? With the increasing role of extension languages for scripting,prototyping,extending and glueing, there should be use for interfaces of those langues to ncurses too. > > Klaus Schilling > There is an ncurses-interface to SCM (the Guile predecessor by Aubrey Jaffer) - a scheme dialect. I uploaded it a while ago to the scheme-repository ftp.cs.indiana.edu (I have to look up where it resides) or ftp-swiss.ai.mit.edu:pub/scm/ncrs-04a.zip. There was another version (NCRS-0.51) which provided basic curses support (not including colours, etc.) ncurses (version 1.9?) support and pdcurses support (for DOS platforms). This version is not yet published, but You can eMail me if You are interested. Johannes Leveling -- email : Johannes.Leveling@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE ------------------------------------------- From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed Jun 25 10:12:00 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id KAA11653 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 10:11:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id IAA11299 for ncurses-outgoing; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:01:11 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id IAA11295 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:01:08 -0600 (MDT) Received: from tsi-telsys.com (tsi-telsys.com [205.230.130.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA23367 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:01:06 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [205.230.130.28] by tsi-telsys.com with ESMTP (Apple Internet Mail Server 1.1.1); Wed, 25 Jun 1997 09:56:35 -0400 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199706242133.RAA18718@snark.thyrsus.com> References: <199706241536.IAA28634@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Jun 24, 97 08:36:25 am Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 10:01:33 -0500 To: ncurses@bsdi.com From: Ward Horner Subject: Re: What's the status of ncurses now? Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 596 Lines: 17 >We have a new primary maintainer and a plan to resolve the copyright >problem. When will the new primary maintainer take over? From what baseline will the work begin? Will he take up where the Dickey left off or start from 1.9.9g? I realize that some people don't feel this way, but I found Dickey to be very responsive to my input and he was a great help in my port to vxWorks OS. My requests were never more than one patch away, which he released faithfully every weekend. I guess I'm wondering if we can expect a similar level of support and effort from the new maintainer. Ward Horner From dickey Tue Jun 24 12:18:57 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: What's the status of ncurses now? To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 12:18:57 -0400 (EDT) Cc: florian@knorke.saar.de (Florian La Roche), Juergen.Pfeifer@t-online.de (Juergen Pfeifer) In-Reply-To: <199706241536.IAA28634@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Jun 24, 97 08:36:25 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 2020 Lines: 39 > Over in the FreeBSD camp, we're hearing all kinds of horror stories > of disputed copyrights and worse, so I figured I'd come over here > and ask a group of folks a little closer to the source. We're working through the (slow) stages of changing to new management (by adding a 5th person to the group) and have agreed (in principal, if not in writing) to change copyrights to one much like the X Consortium's (so once done, there presumably won't be any quarrels). > There has also been some concern expressed about the direction in > which ncurses appears to be going - more and more features which > deviate a fair bit from the original "curses mandate" to provide a > straight-forward screen I/O library, the most complex object in > which would be the "window" and anything else being layered on top > (in a different library). well, that's horror stories. They're more interesting than the facts. (We're referring to a thread in one of the newsgroups based on an obsolete version of ncurses released almost 3 years ago). Ncurses is a clone of SVr4 curses. The core library happens to be 'standardized' in the form of an X/Open (or whatever the parent org is this year) draft specification that basically recapitulates the SVr4 documentation. Ncurses is based on this (i.e., as nearly as we're able by testing and analysis, it is compatible with SVr4 curses). There are a small number of extensions (about 1% of the functions listed in the binding, though 3% of the source) - things that cannot be done via layers. On SVr4 (and a couple of other platforms), other libraries are bundled with curses: forms/menus/panels. Ncurses implements these - but they are add-ons (separate libraries). They're layered on top of ncurses library (and I don't recall anyplace where the ncurses library is 'aware' of the upper layers). Bundling the extra libraries 'violates' layering about as much as the similar bundling of the terminfo source. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Wed May 28 18:46:05 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: screen refresh To: lav@video.yars.free.net (Alexander V. Lukyanov) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 18:46:05 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: <199705282219.CAA13334@video.yars.free.net> from "Alexander V. Lukyanov" at May 29, 97 02:19:09 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 855 Lines: 21 > > > In ncurses, what is the best way to redraw a screen that has been corrupted > > > by non-ncurses functions such as printf(). To further complicate matters, I > > > am using panels also. Currently I use wrefresh (curscr). Sometimes it > > > works, but other times it fails, I suspect it could be something in my > > > code, but I thought I should run this by the experts first. > > you should try 'touchwin(stdscr)' > > I think it won't refresh screen properly. 'clearok(stdscr,1); refresh();' will. I've been using touchwin(stdscr); wrefresh(curscr); for sysv versions, and a hack with the clearok for bsd versions. (I'm aware that bsd curses has a 'touchwin()' that doesn't work, but I've been using the sysv version with good success). So that applies to ncurses as well. -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Thu May 29 08:20:03 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: screen refresh To: lav@video.yars.free.net (Alexander V. Lukyanov) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 08:20:03 -0400 (EDT) Cc: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) In-Reply-To: <199705291124.PAA13641@video.yars.free.net> from "Alexander V. Lukyanov" at May 29, 97 03:24:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 1084 Lines: 28 > > I've been using > > > > touchwin(stdscr); wrefresh(curscr); > > > > for sysv versions, and a hack with the clearok for bsd versions. > > Ok, I was wrong. I did not know the special action of 'wrefresh(curscr)'. > > If the win argument to wrefresh() is the global variable > curscr, the screen is immediately cleared and repainted from > scratch. > > But then, why touchwin(stdscr) is needed? I honestly don't remember (probably overkill). I knew about the curscr hack from experimentation (and because it was broken in ncurses a couple of years ago ;-). In any case, I'll have to come up with a workable hack for bsd curses since I want to be able to benchmark my directory editor on different flavors of curses. (I had a workaround for the broken touchwin that worked on the bsd4.3 curses on Apollo, but it can't defeat the bsd4.4 bug - though there's more than one version of _that_ - the one I've on Linux works ok, but the one on FreeBSD as well as the one on BSDI is broken). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Thu May 29 21:18:48 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: vt102-w terminfo.src fix To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 21:18:48 -0400 (EDT) Cc: rwuest@sire.vt.com In-Reply-To: from "rwuest" at May 29, 97 06:47:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 650 Lines: 23 > To the terminfo.src maintainer, c'est moi > Here's a one liner patch to fix what would be a really long vt102. On > line 1289 of terminfo.src, lines should be cols (ncurses-4.0). > > -*-*- Cut Here -*-*- > > --- terminfo.src.old Sat Nov 30 11:03:00 1996 > +++ terminfo.src Thu May 29 18:07:38 1997 > @@ -1286,7 +1286,7 @@ > mir, > dch1=\E[P, dl1=\E[M, il1=\E[L, rmir=\E[4l, smir=\E[4h, use=vt100, > vt102-w|dec vt102 in wide mode, > - lines#132, > + cols#132, > rs3=\E[?3h, use=vt102, agreed (will be in my next patch) -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From dickey Tue May 13 18:32:41 1997 From: "Thomas E. Dickey" Subject: Re: A small fixes for ncurses-1.9.9g on NetBSD 1.2D. To: ncurses-list@netcom.com Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 18:32:41 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199705132116.OAA00942@mail6.netcom.com> from "Satoshi Adachi" at May 14, 97 06:16:32 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Status: RO Content-Length: 974 Lines: 22 > I have just compiled ncurses-1.9.9g on NetBSD 1.2D running over > Macintosh PowerBook 550C (m68k-apple-netbsd1.2D). I made both of > the non-shared library and the shared library. if you have specific information for the system, I can add the options for the shared libraries (i.e., the values of 'uname', and the loader options) to the next version. > ((1)) In the compilation, I fould that several "Makfefile.in" files lack > the definition of the variable ABI_VERSION, though that variable > is referenced as "libncurses.so.$(ABI_VERSION)" in the generated Makefile's. I will check, but perhaps this is fixed in the current release (4.1) at ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurses thanks. > ((2)) If we use the recent version of "autoconf" to generate "configure" > from "configure.in", the following small modification is necessary: yes, this is changed in the current version (for autoconf 2.12). -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed May 14 14:14:04 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA26656 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 14:13:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id LAA09710 for ncurses-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 11:45:39 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id LAA09706 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 11:45:34 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.clark.net (mail.clark.net [168.143.0.10]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id LAA11327 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 11:45:24 -0600 (MDT) Received: from clark.net (dickey@explorer.clark.net [168.143.0.7]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA14971 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 13:44:57 -0400 (EDT) From: "T.E.Dickey" Received: (from dickey@localhost) by clark.net (8.8.5/8.7.1) id NAA05072 for ncurses@bsdi.com; Wed, 14 May 1997 13:45:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705141745.NAA05072@clark.net> Subject: Re: A small fixes for ncurses-1.9.9g on NetBSD 1.2D. To: ncurses@bsdi.com (Ncurses Mailing List) Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 13:45:04 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: from "Tim Mooney" at May 14, 97 11:55:20 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 912 Lines: 24 > > On Tue, 13 May 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote: > > >I will check, but perhaps this is fixed in the current release (4.1) at > > ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurses > > I've been a list member and a very minor contributor to ncurses for a > while now, but I don't remember seeing any announcement about changes > in "licensing" for ncurses. How come the current release isn't available > on prep and the other GNU mirror sites? There's no change in "licensing" (it's still BSD-like). I've asked someone about putting 4.1 on prep.ai.mit.edu (I'll have to follow up on that, true). > Tim Mooney mooney@dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak.edu > Information Technology Services (701) 231-1076 (Voice) > Room 242-J1, IACC Building (701) 231-8541 (Fax) > North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164 > -- Thomas E. Dickey dickey@clark.net http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey From owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Wed May 14 14:27:54 1997 Received: from mailgate.BSDI.COM (mailgate.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.18]) by mail.clark.net (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA02067 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 14:27:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) id MAA10163 for ncurses-outgoing; Wed, 14 May 1997 12:16:11 -0600 (MDT) Received: from external.BSDI.COM (external.BSDI.COM [205.230.225.1]) by mailgate.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id MAA10159 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 12:16:08 -0600 (MDT) Received: from cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (qmailr@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu [131.252.30.67]) by external.BSDI.COM (8.8.5/8.8.2) with SMTP id MAA13317 for ; Wed, 14 May 1997 12:16:06 -0600 (MDT) Received: (qmail 29395 invoked by uid 11105); 14 May 1997 18:12:00 -0000 To: ncurses@bsdi.com Subject: Re: A small fixes for ncurses-1.9.9g on NetBSD 1.2D. References: From: marcus@cathcart.sysc.pdx.edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: 14 May 1997 11:12:00 -0700 In-Reply-To: Tim Mooney's message of Wed, 14 May 1997 11:55:20 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-ncurses@mailgate.BSDI.COM Precedence: bulk Status: RO Content-Length: 202 Lines: 7 >>>>> "TM" == Tim Mooney writes: TM> How come the current TM> release isn't available on prep and the other GNU mirror sites? ..also wondering about a prep release.