Subject: Pine licensing : should be compatible with GNU GPL ?

From: Alexandre Dulaunoy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:42:38 +0100 (CET)

Dear All,

Pine  is an excellent  piece of  software. But  I'm wondering  why the
license is  not compatible with  the GNU General Public  License. This
will  solve  the recurring  issue  of  distribution  pine with  Debian
GNU/Linux, this can increase the user base. 

Is  there an  excellent  summary  of situation  by  the University  of
Washington ?  Why the license is not a classical Free Software License
(as stated by the 4 freedoms) ? Is it an historical reason ? 

Thanks a lot for any feedback. 

adulau

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From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:25:45 +0000 (GMT)

> (as stated by the 4 freedoms) ? Is it an historical reason ?

This has been discussed a lot over the years and I have a section
in my main Pine page about it here:

 <http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/#freedom>

This includes links to some of the discussions and articles about
this issue. I can understand not wanting to release it under GPL,
but I often wonder why they don't release it under the same
"fork-free" license that they use for the UW IMAP server.

Hope the link above is helpful,
Nancy

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From: Alexandre Dulaunoy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:37:31 +0100 (CET)

> "fork-free" license that they use for the UW IMAP server.

Yes, but I don't know if  the fork-free license is compatible with the
GNU  GPL.   Being  compatible  (like  the   berkeley  License  without
advertising  and  MIT-X ...)  is  a  great  advantage to  solve  legal
difficulties with patches, addons and custom version. 

Do you know if the fork-free license is compatible with the GNU GPL ? 

Thanks a lot for your feedback. 

adulau

PS : If the fork-free license  is compatible with the GNU GPL, why the
UW  didn't use  it ?  I  couldn't find  a historical  reason (maybe  a
specific funding for the UW).  Is there any information about that (an
url) ?

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From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:35:55 +0000 (GMT)

> Do you know if the fork-free license is compatible with the GNU GPL ?

If you read what I wrote above and your read all the links on my
Pine page about this and you read the fork-free licensce, which
is here

 <http://www.washington.edu/imap/legal.html>

you'll see that No, it is not compatible with GPL.

Nancy