Re: License problems with Pine MUA?

[Sean Jewett <sean@rimboy.com>]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Drews, Jonathan* wrote:

> I just checked the SuSE ftp public site and both Pine 4.5.8 and Pico are
> available. I don't doubt that it's not open source. I just wonder why it
> merits  exclusion on some distros. I mean some distros also ship RealPlayer,
> APFL Ghostscript, Scilab, Gnuplot, Java, Acrobat reader and in some cases
> Macromedia Flash. None of those are open source. I looked at the Pine
> license before I wrote to the list and it seemed OK. So why are they so
> upset over Pine? 

Excellent points.  Maybe it's because they think everyone uses Mutt and
those other tools you list they can't live without (I've been using xpdf
for years so why they would ship Acrobat is beyond me).

Crap.  4.5.8???!!!  I've got a bit of updating to do.  

>  I don't dispute your word Steven. I just get the suspicion that their was a
> quarrel with the Pine developers in the past and now it's being excluded
> because of that quarrel. Sort of like the problems with Qt a few years back
> (I realize Qt may be a special case). At any rate, I guess my big concern is
> will Pine be maintained for the next few years or is it in danger of being
> phased out because it is excluded by certain distros?

I don't think there is much if any danger of it being phased out or having
development stopped.  I traded emails with someone from the Pine team a
year or two ago, his response came in a timely manner so on the surface it
appears they are still working on it.  Pine has been around for awhile and
I don't see it going away soon.  Likewise, it's a fairly stable and mature
program so aside from enhancements IMO most of the heavy lifting has been
done.

UWash apparently has some screwed up ways of thinking.  I spoke with a
former faculty member from there and he described computing there as
nothing short of backwards.  That might explain the reluctance to open
Pine but does not explain why they won't do it given everything else true
Open Source has offered.  They're still stuck in the mindset that killed 
stuff like gopher.  

Yeah, why these distro's are dropping Pine is a good question, the move to 
pure commercial may indeed be the reason why.  Unfortunately if the Pine 
people have stuck with their guns this long they won't be changing anytime 
soon.  I think even University of Minnesota finally saw the light with 
Gopher, long after Gopher became a footnote on the Information 
Superhighway.

Recalling fondly the days of gopherspace...

Sean...

--
The punk rock will get you if the government don't get you first.
	--Old 97's
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